Let's be honest about the holiday season
x2... the true meaning of Christmas is slowly deteriorating into a materialistic spending frenzy.
x3.
This point was driven home to me this year when we took our kid to see Santa for the first time (he's too young to know what's even happening, but have to get the pics). $30 later we have a crappy low-quality printed Santa pic. OH, it's $10 extra for a crappy slightly-less-low-quality digital version? CHA CHING, so $40 later we have our first Santa pic.
OK, I know that some places have free Santas still, and we maybe could have found one, but this one had a real beard, so we had to pay him to let our kid sit on his lap for 20 seconds while someone who didn't give a hoot shot a picture of him at the wrong time and missed all the cute shots we could have gotten had we been allowed to do it ourselves for free.
Yeah, the spirit of Christmas is being lost. Clue people: it's not about how much plastic Chinese crap you can buy and throw at everyone around you, it's really not. It's not supposed to be a big money grab.
So long as we keep traditions alive, time spent with family, it will live though, despite all that distraction.