Christmas and New Years

Christmas
On Christmas eve, I spent half the day with my friends, in which we went to someone's home and played video games for most of the day til around 3:00ish. (I had gorged myself on grapes in between these festivities). The other half I spent at home eating hotpot with my family and a bunch of my mom's friends. I pretty much watched over the little kids, my brother, Ellen, and Jessie (my mom's friend's daughters). Hotpot is a kind of buffet like thing, where there are a bunch of ingredients and we throw it into a pot to cook, there's food like seaweed, fish balls, beef slices, veggies, mushrooms, dumplings, lamb, noodles, wintermelon, etc. Its pretty simple. My family doesn't really celebrate Christmas, there's no decorating of mistletoe, trees, Santa figurines or anything but I think we tend to invite people on that day for food and chat. This would tap into Christmas being a day to spend with your friends and family, a message we get from both corporate and folk. I like this face of Christmas where it brings people together, spending time with your family and friends, and how its about giving albeit that part of it is what corporate media uses to make Christmas such a commercialized holiday.
What I don't get about Christmas is why this one day, why some people try to make this the one day where things are good. Why don't we make an effort the other days of the year? Its as if its ingrained that if this one day could be perfect, then it makes up for all the other ones that aren't. Of course there are exceptions as there are with many things, but why is that? Is it all the movies we've watched were the people get into the Christmas spirit. Its touted as an almost magical day in Corporate media.


New Years
Its New Years Eve! I see Bill and Hilary Clinton along with other people holding on to the button that will drop the giant ball. On Channel 7, ABC, you will see the Disney stars the Jonas brothers, Deni Lavoto and teen country singer Taylor swift. The people are clad in their blue 2008 hats and glasses and await, watching the big countdown timer in time square. The big ball is dropping and confetti falls as people count down with the timer. Its a huge confetti fest and there are ads in the telly for Nivea, and other brands. In huge block letters 2009 is lit up. The camera zooms into a crowd of kissing people. Everyone is into the new years kiss thing.

Hmm..what does this say about our culture? For one thing, not to state the obvious, its very materialistic with all the ads and focus on products that's a message we get from where to derive meaning from for another we enjoy making a big celebration to mark off fresh starts. Seeing how such a big crowd of people will gather to watch a gigantic ball drop on times square and how we find it necessary to mark the year with this big extravaganza, we're into milestones, marking off the passage of time. Its meaningful to us to feel we have some control over things like time when we know we don't. People will go to times square and at midnight the whole kissing thing that welcomes the New Year is a somewhat bizarre tradition that maybe highlights people's want for contact. It's like a need for social connection in a way. I think this is meaningful to people and somehow creates meaning for them.