Animation Source Forums

It's a joke, but it's serious at the same time. The way people think of Christmas these days, I thnk parents bank accounts will be a little... Empty.

That kind of concept, sadly, proves that too many souls are already empty. When Christmas loses its deeper meaning, when presents and decorations become what it's all about... well, it's just a matter of time until the rug comes out from under that.

Personally, I find that you can often get a far better Christmas at lower prices. Handmade gifts, for instance, say a lot more than store-bought ones. A simple craft like a home-made card or a hand-woven potholder says, "This is a personal gift, not a generic one. This wasn't obtained with casually spent money or a few clicks of the mouse. This is the product of personal time, thought, and effort. You're more to me than just an item on a checklist."
Also, you can find good gifts sometimes in the "lesser" places. I was at Goodwill once, and found a set of DVDs from a series my brothers and I grew up on. I bought them for my brother, and that combined with a little creativity in the presentation, made it something I doubt he'll ever forget. By contrast, if I had gotten him a Transformers toy or something like that at a big brand name store, I would have paid way more and it would have been broken or lost by February.

Jersey --> Oh, I agree that Christmas is about giving. Spirituality aside (if one can truly do that), the wise men's gifts are by all means a significant aspect of the story. And whatever one's personal beliefs about Jesus, there's no denying that His life, the beginning of which Christmas rightly celebrates, was a gift to the world one way or another. But you are right, mainstreaming does cost it something.
Also, I do enjoy the idea of combining different aspects for the sake of cultural understanding. Incorporating the Yule log is, in my book, a welcoming addition with its symbolism of light. Candles in the window, by all means. The narrow edge one has to tread is that the symbols do not lose their meaning, or bring with them some additional meaning contradictory to the original. It's all about how people understand it.