1. Timothy Stone says:

    I would argue that commercialism IS a problem to a specific extent. Some businesses tend to not exactly treat their employees well and put their desire for profits over their employees. I’m a big supporter of the free market and don’t want them regulated for this, but I find the way some folks are worked and treated on holidays immoral.

    • Julie D says:

      As a part-time clerk, I second Timothy. The store I work at was open 7 am-8 pm on Thanksgiving and 8 am-8 pm Christmas Eve. They’re closed on Christmas, but that’s it.

      • Heather says:

        How the employers treat their employees has nothing to do with commercialism. That’s a character flaw. Those kind of people probably don’t treat their employees very well all year round.

        As for the stores be opened on those days, if the consumers would quit going out to eat, buying groceries, or buying items on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve (sometimes Christmas Day), the businesses would not be open.

        However, I do agree that that is no excuse for the employers to open their stores on those holidays. Or to be treating their employees poorly. I always wished the employers would just let their workers stay home and spend Christmas with their families.

        So in my opinion, the consumers and the companies are both partially to be blamed for the stores being opened over the holidays.

  2. Timothy Stone says:

    Yes and now. The fact that employers have been actively being open longer and earlier and so on than previous years is a puposeful act of subverting traditions and overturning expectations about family times at Christmas season to make money. Yes, the customers feed into it at times, but that doesn’t excuse the companies either. They both are wrong.

    Remember the movie Elf, if you have seen it? Anyways, the guy who makes the character’s dad and others work Christmas Eve is bad not just for his attitude, but for making them work on Christmas Eve. These days I wonder if besides the attitude most folks wouldn’t just agree with the bad boss, at least at these corporations. This is overturning long-held traditions and expectations about the holiday and that is bad to me.

    • Heather says:

      Looks like to me we both mostly agree with each other. The only thing that I disagree with is this statement:

      “The fact that employers have been actively being open longer and earlier and so on than previous years is a puposeful act of subverting traditions and overturning expectations about family times at Christmas season to make money.”

      While I would agree that there are probably some who do this, I would also guess that most companies aren’t trying to overturn expectations about family time. To them, it’s all about money. Greedy in a way, yes. But I really don’t think that these companies are sitting around their expensive tables, dreaming of ways to ruin family time during the Christmas season.

      Seems to me that the family decline in America happened first. Then the stores began opening earlier and longer. I believe these two are at least partially connected with each other.

      Plus I don’t think it’s really fair to the companies, or to anyone, to be reading and judging their motives when you’re not a hundred percent certain. To be purposefully tearing the family apart for profit is a very serious accusation. I would be careful of talking that way without more substantial evidence. You can say it is an opinion. That is what mine is. But I wouldn’t state it as fact.

      I hope you had a Merry Christmas!

What do you think?