American Culture And Celebrating Christmas

In this paper I will discuss Social Theories such as Structural Functionalism, Conflict theory; with emphasis on Karl Marx’s early work and how it relates to the conflict theory and Symbolic interaction. I intend to define and discuss relevant sociological terms of these theories and how these theories could apply to my favorite holiday which is Christmas.

Merry Christmas! Christmas is a special time of the year. People all around the world enjoy the Christmas season. Some traditions are specific in their country. Australia and the United States share some traditions, however, other things are completely different.

Christmas in france is way different then christmas in america. Merry christmas in france is “joyeux noel’. The traditions in france are french ornaments, french nativity scenes, and traditional french christmas food. There are many french traditions for christmas that are different than how we celebrate in america. Christmas is a big holiday in france.

There are similarities and differences between Christmas in America and Christmas in Italy. The Christmas holiday originated with the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25, a day around the shortest day of the year. Therefore, the main reason we celebrate the holiday is to celebrate Christ's birthday. Another reason for celebrating Christmas includes the changing of the seasons and the days that will become short before becoming long again. The shortest day, not necessarily falling on Christmas, is Winter Solstice which happens also to be a Pagan, agricultural holiday to mark the changes is the seasons. Most simply, we celebrate Christmas across the world as inspiration to imitate ethical behaviors of Christ who unconditionally loved all men and women regardless of their beliefs or backgrounds.

Christmas is a very special holiday in many countries including Spain and the United States. In the United States Christmas celebration traditionally starts after Thanksgiving. In Spain however it is not celebrated until Christmas Eve with their families.

To people in America, Christmas occurs on December 25th, a day where children wake up to find presents under the tree. In other traditions, some people go to church to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. However, even though many countries celebrate Christmas, there are different traditions and ways of celebrations. In Hispanic countries, like Spain, Cuba, Columbia and Mexico, they celebrate in a way that contrasts with ours yet are similar to things we can identify with.

Ah Christmas, it is said to be the most wonderful time of the year. In the United States Christmas is a time of giving and receiving, spending time with your family, and in most Christian families, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas is hands-down the most highly commercialized holiday celebrated by Americans. In fact, according to CBS news, the average American will spend $700 on gifts this holiday season, totaling for a whopping $465 billion spent nation-wide. From mall Santas as far as the eye can see, to hearing Christmas music in every retail store you enter. Christmas is a time of high spirits and high spending in the U.S.

Mike Rauser’s article, “War on Christmas” product of spoiled attitudes, provides an introduction to help explain the contents learned in this class. His article has viewpoints that can be demonstrated by the four nodes of religion inquiry, and Ninian Smart’s six dimension of religion. His article acts as a springboard to show our understanding of the course materials.

When most people think of December they tend to think about Christmas. It is supposed to be a time of everyone coming together, being joyful, and

There is no doubt that Christmas is a religious event but nowadays Christmas becomes more commercialized, as it has been defined as a high consumption season because the gifts giving culture becomes the most important part of Christmas and the consumers want to please their children

Christmas is celebrated in many different countries around the world. Everybody likes when they get school off and get to open presents. The parents like to see friends and family and see their children. Christmas in Venezuela is celebrated different than the United States.

As aforementioned, the initial true meaning of Christmas is religion - one that has now been muchly downplayed. Of course at first glance religion is only an important element of Christmas for those who are actually religious, for which then religion plays the dominant role of what Christmas is to them. However, religion means to show obligation to something through faith, it could be argued that the majority of society is actually religious. We follow a society which has

Holidays have always been known to affect our consumer culture for many years, but how it all began eludes many people and very few studies have been completed on it. Even though some say that the subject is too broad to precisely identify how holidays, especially Christmas, directly affect our market, I have found that people’s values, expectations and rituals related to holidays can cause an excessive amount of spending among our society. Most people are unaware that over the centuries holidays have become such a profitable time of year for industries that they now starting to promote gift ideas on an average of a month and a half ahead of actual holiday dates to meet consumer demands.

The most collectively celebrated holiday of the year is undeniably December 25th, Christmas. Most people acknowledge that the “Christ” in Christmas is representative of Jesus Christ, Son of God, and for Christians, the day is set aside as a celebration of his birth. Many people in the United States (and world) however, either do not believe in the Christian view of Christmas, have different non-Christian religious beliefs or celebrate for other reasons, if at all. Because of the multi-cultural differences that incorporate our country, Christmas should be declared by Congress as simply a Federal Holiday. This would be achieved if the dominant “Christ” aspect from “Christ”-mas was removed by renaming the holiday to The Winter Holiday,

Throughout the world, cultures have many diverse holiday traditions. In some countries such as; Austria, Greece, Slovakia, Japan, Greenland, and Catalonia there are some odd traditions compared to how people celebrate Christmas in the United States. Even though these countries are different, these several countries have been believing or performing these traditions for many centuries. Within these countries, there are plenty of unusual backstories in how these traditions came to be and why the traditions are performed throughout countries today.