Scrooge's bum rap

I came across a really good comment in The Salt Lake Tribune  newspaper today called Scrooge’s bum rap. The article is listed below:

"Re ‘Thanksgiving Day sales anger some consumers’ (Tribune, Nov. 11):


When I was growing up in the 1950s, we actually had three distinct holidays between Labor Day and New Years to celebrate. With the stores decorating in September playing Christmas music at Halloween and now turning Thanksgiving Day into shoppers’ “Black Thursday,” the fall is all just a red and green Santa blur.


So let’s just skip the charade and call the in-between holidays for what they are, maybe Shopfest or Giftmas. Heck, while were at it, why not move Black Friday from the day after Thanksgiving to the day after the Fourth of July.


Think of it, six months of Christmas music, decorations and shopping.  Then people won’t have to stand out in the cold for hours to save five bucks. Retail workers can have a descent Thanksgiving. And we can celebrate the holidays again.


Scrooge got a bum rap; he was just ahead of his time. He knew that humans have this excruciating need to overdo a good thing until it has lost its meaning and is no longer fun. So here’s to you, Ebenezer: Merry Giftmas. Bah! Humbug!” ~ by Kenneth Twelves, North Salt Lake"


This article really hits home to what the holidays have become here in America.  People have forgotten what the holidays are all about. Hell, people have forgotten almost everything about the United States and its ideals.  Holidays were supposed to be ‘holy days’ that represented concepts and ideals and were supposed to help us reconnect to the world around us. However, over the years all of the holidays have become commercialized and people have forgotten that ALL people were created (or evolved) from the same creative power of all existence.  Diety has many faces, names and forms.  One time people understood this, but now bigotry, fear, and intolerance reign and with the commercialization of the holidays, why do we even bother pretending that we are above animals or bother trying to support anything remotely referred to as the so-called family values?

Everyone has forgotten that we are all interconnected (globally) and that we all have the same needs. After survival needs have been met, everyone wants to belong to something, to make that connection to family, friends, community, etc... What we need is to remember what the holidays were for, all of them, reconnect ourselves to our fellow human beings and our planet. If we do this, maybe we can make our world a better place rather than turn our world into a big trash heap like it is depicted in the movie “Wall-e” by Disney’s Pixar Films. I for one plan on doing projects to teach my kids about all of the holidays of the world and to help them realize their importance and, if I am lucky, instill in them the desire to share this with others.