Christmas Time

1.  Before Jesus was born and Christians began the holiday of Christmas to celebrate his birth.  Ancient Europeans and individuals from Scandinavia celebrate in December as a time to celebrate light and freedom in the years darkest time.  they would celebrate the winter solstice, because it meant that the cold would reseed and the sun would return bringing warmer weather, longer days, and new life to their animal herds.  Many other cultures throughout time would celebrate this time in their on way, but the over all idea was that their would be plenty of food and drink from the years work and everyone would be praising a good year to come. http://www.history.com/topics/christmas
2. Christmas has its roots in the Saturnalia Festival, it being nine months after Mary is believed to have become pregnant with Jesus, and old pagan celebrations. http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp
3.Many old traditions did not consist of individuals running to the stores and get the greatest thing for their family, instead they would make/create these gifts.  The name Black Friday emerged from the Philadelphia police wanting to discourage shoppers from rampaging over the first sales of the holiday season, because it was getting hard for them to control crowds and individuals were getting hurt. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/11/black-fridays-dark-origins/
4. anti-consumerism holiday caroling groups 
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dawn-dc/message/4533
The Compact  
http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/classic/A25871141 
  Freecycle Network
http://www.freecycle.org 
5.  To me the holidays are a time of chaos.  Family comes into town and we try to jumble our calendars so we can all be together for the holidays.  4 or 5 mothers are in the kitchen preparing a feast for us all, while the dads are yelling at the older kids to stop playing tricks on the younger one's.  it is a time were my mom and dad go to bed early on thanksgiving that way they can stand in line at bass pro for 3 hours just to get a t shirt and a fishing pole, and to send me a video of two guys fighting over a trial camera.  Christmas day isn't all joy either, even though it is happy there is still a hustle to try and get everyone and their presents into one house so we can open them together.  Then before you know it the 30 long days of hustle and bustle are over, all the holiday magic has disappeared, dads are still mad over all the toys they have to put together for their children and mothers/grandmothers have mountains and mountains of dishes that have to be done before new years.