American Christmas

What is the meaning of Christmas? Why are so many people buying gifts? Is there a real spiritual root to this holiday? Why is our society so defensive of it? What are YOU going to buy this season? What IS the reason for the season? Why is everyone going to scurry to church and the mall? What's up with this holiday? While the majority of the world is suffering in relative poverty, why are we spending wildly?

My study abroad experience in Cuba and Nicaragua (2000) ended in a rude awakening. After having spent a semester abroad, I returned to the United States only to be bombarded with a culture rife with greed. When I stepped off the plane, I experienced the largest contradiction of my life. I walked from the severely impoverished into the tremendously wealthy in a matter of seconds. Needless to say, it was a life changing experience.

Nothing could have prepared me for that moment of dramatic transformation. Not the de-briefing session designed by the study abroad program, nor the spontaneous skinny dipping episode on a remote part of the Nicaraguan Coast. There was no easy way to go from Managua to Houston.

In Nicaragua, people celebrate Christmas to p. ay homage to their spiritual beliefs. The Nicaraguans are mostly Catholic and celebrate Christmas as the birth of Christ -- their one and only Savior. Nicaraguan families do not exchange gifts. They only gather together and pray.

In Cuba, the people hardly celebrate Christmas for two reasons: their roots in the Yoruba oral tradition and their adherence to socialism. Ever since Fidel emphasized the Island's African roots following the 1959 socialist revolution, Cubans have embraced their African heritage. Also, the redistribution of wealth that followed the Revolution strayed Cuban citizens from Christmas based on the holiday's capitalist origins.

Poor nations have offered a wide range of critiques of Western consumption patterns. Developing countries with strong ties to the Church, like Nicaragua, feel that the US has strayed too far from religious ideals in the name of greed. Other more secular countries, like Cuba, feel that Americans are more concerned with material things than more meaningful aspects of life. Whatever the underlying explanation may be, the fact remains that our country's spending habits are out of control and Christmas is the most clear evidence of this growing problem.