Have you ever read Mafalda? If you haven't... Please! Do it! It's a fantastic comic which makes a criticism about our “little world”.
Mafalda is a five years old little girl who is deeply concerned about humanity and world peace and rebels against the world as it is. Big trues are loosened hidden in nice sentences and jokes.
I can't put here any comic strip because I haven't found any in English... but here it is one in Spanish!jejee ^^
Crowds of people in the streets, thousands of bulbs illuminating the streets, the smell of chestnuts and corncobs flooding everything, shopping everywhere, hypocrisy, gifts, money and so on. This is all what you see during these days: many people spending too much money, which many of them haven't got. This is our new lifestyle, a life based on appearances.
Fifty years ago, Christmas Day, the 25th December, was a day to stay with the family and to receive the Christmas box. And in the afternoon, children went out to the streets to throw firecrackers.
In this time, Santa Claus didn't exist for the Spanish society. Santa Claus is a Nordic tradition which was used by “El Corte Inglés” to raise the consumption and their benefits. In addition to this, Santa Claus is an American celebration too, and this fact is very important because many countries of Europe adopt American festivities like Halloween, that had never been celebrated before.
Could anybody tell me why in these days we must be happy? Why can't be happy all the year? Why just can we forgive during this period of the year? I have tried it many times, but I have never understand why we must be good people in these days and not the whole year.
Returning to the central subject of Christmas and what it carries, I would want to speak about the huge amount of presents. Why have we got the necessity of buying all these presents? Are we worse people if we don't buy a minimum of twenty expensive gifts? I can't understand this either.
Against what it is thought, children aren't happier for having more gifts. This is a capitalist idea: the time that you can't spend/dedicate with your sons fill it with presents and whims. With this thought it has increased the number of children with depression and emotional disorders. The fondness of the family can't be replaced for nothing material. Spoiled and disrespectful children are the result of this practice, like those that we find nowadays.
Our parents and their parents are going wrong in the education that they are giving to their sons. They have all they want without their behaviour, without striving for nothing. And the parents agree and reward.
For these reasons and other personal opinions I don't like Christmas festivity, though I enjoy holidays and not having class.
