Christmas, once one of the most popular religious holidays, has been corrupted by media. A shell of commercialization has been built around it, and the fragile nut of religion has rotted from within. So complete is this process now that few people who aren’t devoutly religious even remember what the season signifies – the birth of Christ. Instead, it is a time of stress, high prices, hard-to-find merchandise, and Santa Claus. But how did this happen? What caused the corruption? The fact is everything changes, everything is modified. Stories change over time, and people forget things. While Christmas is celebrated worldwide, many different versions have emerged from the one simple holiday – generally celebrated on or around late December or early January – because of one person – a bishop, who became a saint, whose name happened to be Nicholas.

Saint Nicholas wasn’t by any means a big man in the religious field – it seems that pure chance and a couple of small stories shaped the man we now know as Santa Claus. One, which makes the most sense in terms of current myths, is that he threw gold through the window of a house for the dowries of three young women, saving them a lifetime of prostitution. Variations on this tale state that either the window was locked the third night so he was forced to drop the bag down the chimney, or that one of the bags landed in a stocking, hanging to dry over the fireplace. Either way, a popular character was born. Saint Nicholas was most popular over in Europe, where he originated. The Dutch were particularly impressed with his standing as the patron saint of all children, and they left wooden shoes to collect presents in. However, the date of this tradition was far from the modern Christmas Day – St. Nicholas’s Eve was on December 6^th, and the day of his feast was the 7^th.

During this time, St. Nick was far from the image we identify with today. Tall and thin, he wore bishop’s robes, carried a shepherd’s staff, and rode on a donkey (although it was later changed to a white horse). Over the years, he evolved some more. When the Dutch arrived in the New World, they took the legend of St. Nick with them. Then the Britains took over New Amsterdam, and for 200 years the repressed Dutch kept it to themselves. Then a satirical book of Dutch traditions arrived, mentioning a ‘Sinter Klaas’. The tradition was well received by the British, soon to become the Americans, although their mangled pronunciation eventually ended up with the creation of Santa Claus, and they moved St. Nicholas’s day of feast to a far more convenient time for them – the period during which Christmas is celebrated.

Many other changes came to Santa, but the most significant – and the one which remains with us to this day – came when the Coca-Cola Company decided to boost winter sales. It did this in an ingenious way – it combined Santa – suddenly a jolly, fat man in red and white, the Coke colours – drinking a Coca-Cola. Their sales soared. This was in 1931, so the current, media-controlled version of Santa we know and love (or at least tolerate) has been with us for 68 years, and shows no signs of slowing yet.

But what relevance does this have to the commercialization of Christmas? A lot – Coca-Cola is a massive company, controlling a lot of the world’s politics. They created the modern Santa, which is synonymous with Christmas in North America especially, as well as many other parts of the world. Christmas is no longer a holiday – it’s a seasonal commercial, a media event that can be carried around as easily as a sale, and disposed of just as quickly.

The monetary aspect of Christmas is accentuated far too much these days. For weeks, media sources plague the public with almost military-like campaigns to buy this here, that there, or this there and ‘save’, even though the discount price is the same there as the full price here, but it’s available in 6 shades of celadon there. These so confuse the average civilian that they stagger about blindly staring incoherently at price tags and end up buying anything marked with a bright red ‘SAVE’ sticker, because in the end, that’s what the holiday season is all about. Auntie Sue may not like the Veggie Toaster and Fun Dip Shooter, but it was on special for $9.99. In between desperate attempts at cheap shopping sprees, consumers can quench their thirst with festively decorated Coke cans. Look, there’s Santa; smiling and drinking a refreshing beverage emblazoned with the logo "Coca-Cola Classic".

Such a magical time of year this is. The malls are decorated with garlands and lights; the loudspeakers are playing the same enchanting Christmas music over and over again. This is the time of the year the Media shines – it seems to have brainwashed us with ‘traditional’ carols and plastic greenery. The carols even have an updated; ‘funky’ beat to them, no doubt to keep shoppers awake long enough to purchase a recording of the noise.

Above all, however, it is a religious time of year. Why, just over there are the Nativity Scenes, nearly hidden behind the wall of boxed Animatronic Santa With Hammer And 72-Piece Socket Wrench Set (a Collector’s Edition sponsored by Happy Harry’s Hardware Emporium, can’t miss this deal!). Maybe if you hurry you can get a deal on them - if you can push past the children standing three-deep in front of them, asking mommy what they are, and why doesn’t that guy with the stick have a better weapon so he can get those people out of his barn?

Once upon a time, gifts were made from the heart. A person was told whom they were making the gift for, they made it, they gave it, and they received one in return. Now, however, the ritual is lost to one of the shrines of modern childhood – the almighty Toy Department. It is here that they are guaranteed to have nothing that the children want, especially the newest whizzo-blamo-neato-keen Gimmick of the Year. These are the toys parents dread and the Media love – those ridiculous, cheaply manufactured and expensively retailed items that everyone wants that no one has. Past examples of this have been the Cabbage Patch Doll, the Tickle-Me-Elmo doll, the Furby…these annual annoyances are so well known that entire MOVIES have been based around them. Which brings up yet another fun Media ploy, brought out Just In Time For Christmas.

Way back when, everything was closed on December 25^th. Now, however, multiple stores are open – and at least three movies premiered on that day last year alone. What was once a purely religious holiday – and therefore a holiday in which one didn’t go out to do ANYTHING (besides going to church) – became a holiday in which yeah, you can stay at home. But you can also go to a movie, if you want, or out shopping for gifts you may have missed. You can even go and buy more stuff for the turkey dinner. This inevitably means that people are working on Christmas – they must have such fun, standing about nearly empty stores while families gather. Of course, given the crowds in some of those stores on Christmas Day, one has to wonder – exactly how many families are even celebrating the season by staying in and opening the presents they’ve spent all their money on?

The days following Christmas aren’t much better. Again the Media strikes, this time with commercials proclaiming gaily "You’re out of money from buying everything at super-expensive prices before the holiday season! Now you can spend the paltry sum you have left on stuff you didn’t get, because everyone was broke before they got to your gift on their list!" Yes, it is the marvelous time of the post-Christmas savings – in Canada specifically known as Boxing Day. This is the day they get you – suddenly all the items you couldn’t find are miraculously available. Of course, the Hot Toy of the Year is still full price, and they only have two of them, one of which is the Rare Collectors Edition, although you can’t remember which one, so you have to buy both, because otherwise your kid’s going to disown you and move down the street to where they not only have the Hot Toy of the Year, but also the ‘Potential Hot Toy of Next Year That Won’t Be Heard From Again After July’.

Despite all of this, people still insist on celebrating the holiday every year. One can only imagine how easy it was back in Holland, where children clad in wooden shoes would leave hay for the donkey. The next morning they’d awake and find that Saint Nicholas had given them a present – possibly tree-shaped pine-scented shoe deodorizers, or tweezers to dig splinters out of their feet. Then they’d gather around for a traditional feast; they’d eat; they’d go to bed. Done. No running about spending mounds of cash, before or after the holiday, no major drop in income.

I suppose in the end it doesn’t come down to the fact that we HAVE to celebrate. We do it because we WANT to. There’s something special about spending weeks preparing, decorating and hoping for snow so the relatives you invited over don’t see all the leaves you left rotting on the lawn. But it would be better without the pressure to do it a certain way – last year the fad was ‘Icicle’ lights, if you didn’t have them, you weren’t REALLY into Christmas. It was like having a fridge without Coke in it. So, in the finest tradition of Media-fed cattle, we bought four strings of the stuff, now tangled beyond belief in some box in the garage. And next year, the old lights will likely go up, and the 80 dollars spent on special dangling lights will be tossed out the window.

Let’s face it, this is the way we live – we don’t care for following old traditions, we update them every year. And that is the reason the season can’t break free. Years ago, someone said "Let’s combine the celebration of St. Nick’s and Christ’s life!" And they did. And the result is the present, the gift that keeps on giving while getting more expensive every year. Here’s your fortune, Media. Merry Christmas.