‘Tis the season to be jolly; or so it used to be. Now, it seems more like, “‘Tis the season to make sure you buy the best presents to show your love.”

It appears as if Christmas is no longer the celebration of the day that Christ was born, but rather, a day when a person either hates Aunt Trudy for getting him those bunny slippers, or realizes that she is his favorite aunt for getting him that bicycle he’d been hoping for.

The decorations seem to go up earlier and earlier every year, making sure that the consumers know that Christmas is coming and that they need to get their wallets out to prepare for it. It’s sad that the appreciation of family time and love has taken a back seat to the love and excitement of getting presents; however, it’s not society that is to blame, but rather the large corporations that shove Christmas down people’s throats before they even sit down for Thanksgiving dinner.

These corporations use clever advertising to get people to buy expensive presents for people they love or convince someone to buy something for himself. There is a commercial that airs on the radio from a car company that gives this very impression.

First of all, there is Christmas music playing in the background during the entire commercial, (hint, hint). This mother and daughter are talking. The daughter says, “Mom you’re smart and beautiful. Do you know who I want to be like?” The mom replies, “Thank you sweetheart. You want to be like me?”

Then the daughter replies, “No, I want to be like Aunt Stacy because she drives a cool car.” The mother is saddened but realizes the way to get her daughter to want to be like her is if she drives a cool car, too. Maybe if mom buys herself a new car for Christmas, her daughter will respect her.

Ouch. It seems as if that commercial does much too good of a job proving how commercial Christmas has become. The toy companies tend to do a good job of making Christmas commercial as well. They inform children about the hot toys that are out during Christmas, making parents scamper around from toy store to toy store to get hard-to-find items which no store has in stock sometimes.

Haven’t movies like “It’s a Wonderful Life” taught us that Christmas is not about how much money or material possessions one has, but how important love from family is? In the movie, George thinks his life is over because he doesn’t have much money, but thanks to the helpful angel, Clarence, he realizes that he is rich with love from his family and from the people of the town.

Unfortunately, most of the movies about Christmas nowadays are about the chaos of this holiday. Movies like “Jingle all the way” show how crushed a young boy will be if his father doesn’t get him the action figure that every boy on the block will have on Christmas morning.

What a fair amount of people don’t understand, thanks to these new kinds of movies and corporate advertising, is that Christmas should be a time of appreciation.

Instead of making up that long Christmas list, go down to someplace like the Salvation Army and donate a toy to a child who might not have received one otherwise.

It’s not to say that presents shouldn’t be given to friends and family on Christmas or that people have become too greedy; it should be brought to the attention of those who celebrate Christmas that the amount of love someone has for you is not measured by the amount or quality of gifts he gives.