Halloween is over—now get ready for Christmas
They came, they dressed up in silly costumes, they loaded themselves down with candy—and now that Halloween is over, Americans are already gearing up for Christmas, still six weeks out. (In fact, if you were paying attention, you probably saw Christmas sales cropping up a month or two ago.) What’s the deal with our cultural obsession with holidays… and with our tendency to recast them as massive commercial events?
Those are the questions asked by Jim Dahlman in a recent post over at The Culture Beat. He sheds a little light on the strange blend of consumer culture and religious tradition in our holidays, and on the way that both approaches influence each other. Give it a read. And get started on that Christmas list….
