like all the fuckin ads with the hugging families around winter. any educationally normal adult knows everyone just gets more stressed, with travel and gifts and social obligations and everything, but you’re not even allowed to…openly feel that, it seems? it’s like there’s this happiness benchmark you have to reach, otherwise you’ll feel even shittier and sadder for not having a happy holiday season
Well, Christmas is one of the most fake holidays there is. Mostly due to it’s timing during the year. It’s the easiest and most important time to sell things. So 99% of what you are “supposed to feel” is just a commercial trying to get you to buy that feeling.
Christmas can be that whole relaxed hangout with family thing and not have store bought presents like on TV in a small town. If you don’t live in a small town, assume almost no Christmas stuff from TV will be possible.
Also most families only have 1 or 2 important Christmas traditions, there’s just such a wide variety of them that for movies to “appeal” to a wider audience they have to do a bunch of stuff to hopefully hit upon a tradition that matters to as much of the audience as possible.
I never thought about that last part, but it’s so true. Movies try to check of every single holiday box, but most of us only do a few of those things. Like, I can’t remember the last time I went to a tree lighting. Maybe as a kid. But every Hallmark movie features the whole community in Town Square gathered for it like every single town stops what they’re doing to all just gather around a tree across the world.
In other countries, Japan for example, gift giving is almost automated in their society to the point of being able to pick up simple gifts nearly anywhere, fancy fruit or what have you. When you get the easy gifts out of the way you can focus on those 1-4 people that are significant to you. But that wouldn’t work in the West, gotta buy all the expensive stuff to take that red into black.