- On the plane ride home from Ireland, a friend and I were talking about how it felt like we were going HOME home. Weird that we weren't. My thoughts were: It'll be Christmas season when we come home! Which led to visions of lights and snow and music playing and stores selling Christmas things and tv commercials all about Christmas... Which prompted a thought. Part of what I love about Christmas (or Thanksgiving) is commercialism. What?! I know! When I realized this I started to think a lot about it. Before this, I'd held a particular bias against commercialism like all the movies teach us to have. I'd like to present a case as to why we should love and be thankful for commercialism. How contrary to Charlie Brown! We're trained to hate the commercialization of Christmas, but I believe that it's also something to be thankful for. It's approaching that time of year right? Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.... I imagine stores in the US starting to advertise and sell fall things, I see posts about pumpkin chai tea, apple picking, and pumpkin patches on facebook, and I start to miss that. Yup. That's what I miss. The commercialism. Shocking right?! In Spain, there isn't really any "hype" about fall, halloween, thankgiving, and I had a conversation with my host dad about how there's some putting up of Christmas lights here, but not at all like in the US. Those are some things that I love about the season! They contribute to the vibe! When I've gone back and watched pre-recorded shows on VCR from when I was a child, you can always tell the season by the festive commercials on tv! So I encourage you not to think of it like "they're commercializing Christmas!!!" (or Thanksgiving) but instead think- "even the commercials celebrate Christmas!" The food, the decorations, the meaning, the history, the STORES, and even COMMERCIALS contribute to the fun and the "Christmas spirit". They all do! That's why we love the "feeling of Christmas" or this time of year. It's cause literally EVERYTHING is themed and honestly, it's just fun! Think- if you took away the commercialization, would we loose a little bit of that? I think yes, therefore, I've recently learned to be thankful for commercialization. -So concludes my brief argument on why Charlie Brown was wrong (well, the hating commercialization part- not the true meaning of Christmas part) and why we should be thankful for it instead of complaining about it- cause I miss it over here!!! I felt particularly optimistic when I realized it was something to be thankful for and I think it gives the holiday an extra spin on the thankful side :)