Materialistic Holidays

 

What is the meaning of Christmas?  Has greed taken over the meaning of Christmas? Christmas is a holiday I have just started celebrating. when I was growing up my intermediate family did not celebrate Christmas. my mother thought Christmas was a waste of time. When I was younger in asked her "Why don’t we celebrate Christmas?" She said "would you rather  have presents one day out of the year or would you rather me buy you something every couple of weeks. even though my siblings and I knew we did not have a choice when it came to my mothers decisions we still picked to have something every couple of weeks.  

I never remember celebrating Christmas when I was younger so my first true Christmas was 2003 with my friend, Chondra's family. Chondra was the first person I met when I came to California so her family and I had became very close. her family exchange small prizes between each other and called it secret Santa. her family came from different states just to hangout with each other, 0play games, and  watch movies. From that Christmas on I tried to get my mom to celebrate Christmas but it never happen. I wanted to be able to have the same experience that I had with the ward family with my own family. 21 years later when my daughter was boring, my family finally celebrated Christmas.  

I think holidays can be materialistic because people get caught up in the ideal of buying the best toy or the better present. A lot of people also believe the better the gift is the better gift they will get. I agree with Amel Saleh when she said, "People are conditioned to "expect" gifts and this ultimately ruins the true meaning of the holidays."(157)  The true meaning of Christmas is not to receive or give gifts but to celebrate what you have, your friends, family, job, etc.  

Reality TV

    Reality television is my guilty pleasure. I love the drama, the fights, and the horrible acting. One of the reality shows that is my all-time favorite is Love and hip hop Atlanta. The reason I started to watch love and hip hop Atlanta or LNHA was because I have always been a hip hop fan and the fact that I was born in Atlanta the show made me feel like I was back at home in the middle of the action. The first episode I watched started with a fight between rapper, Scrappy and Steve J, record producer. The two were fighting because Steve j and his artist, Joselin had disrespected Scrappy girlfriend, Erica. A few minutes after the first fight a second fight broke out between Erica and Joselin. After that episode I was hooked to the show. I made sure I was home every Monday night at nine to watch the show. I also recorded the show just in case I missed it for some reason. Another show I enjoy looking at is Bring
IT on lifetime. It is a reality show about a young group of majorities mix with bucking dance girls called dancing dolls. The dancing dolls compete in competition for trophies and the bragging rights to say there team is the best.

                Reality television has taken over a lot of big televisions stations such as MTV, VH1, Lifetime, and BET. Although reality television is very entertaining it is also extremely harmful to society. For example, the shows Teen Mom and 16 and pregnant demonstrates to the public that being a teenager and having a baby will get you on television and make you a reality star. Another reality show that hurts the image of the youth is Jersey Shores. Before this show came out tanning, body building and partying was not as big of an issue as it is now that the show is out. Snooki shows young girls that is ok to be drunk in public and get arrested. A lot of young adults and teen are now tanning and body building. There is a girl as young as the age of six who is tanning her body and a boy as young as 5 that can lift over one hundred pounds.

                I personally do not avoid reality television how could you when it’s on every channel. I like some of it. The advertisement on a lot of the reality shows are very creative and the drama of the show just sucks you in like a black hole sucking up space.

Never Judge!

In life I have learned that you should never judge a book by its cover. For instance, the first time I met my best friend, Melissa. It was the middle of my tenth grade year when Melissa came to my school, Oxnard high school. It was during break when I notice this new girl with purple braids walking around school. I thought to myself “Ooo that color looks good on her.” I never talk to her until the end of the school day when she got on my bus. Since I got on the bus first, I was able to save a seat for my sister and my friend, Sam. When Melissa got on the bus almost all the seats were taken except the one next to Sam. When Melissa saw Sam she sat down and start going off on him. The both of them were talking about another student, Bree. As the bus start moving, Sam and Melissa finally stop yelling at each other and turn around to talk to us. Something about Melissa just tried to rub me the wrong way. As the school days pass Melissa and I would talk more at lunch and during all the breaks. She started coming to my house every day after school. Ten years later we are still friends. . I am now a godmother to her daughter, Ella.  Melissa is more than a friend to me, she is my sister. She has taught me that you can never look at somebody in judge them. She has also taught me that anybody can change if they want to.  This will be one person that would alas be in my life. Our children are best friends and I hope they grow up together with the same relationship that we have because it’s hard to find and keep true friends.