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TWU professor
offers ways to make holidays less commercial
2006
DENTON —
With Christmas decorations showing up in stores before Labor
Day, and children's cartoons serving as year-round marketing
tools, how can families keep the meaning of the holidays alive?
“It's a challenge,”
said Dr. Glen Jennings, professor of family sciences and family
therapy at Texas Woman's University. “It all tends to
get overly commercialized.”
Dr. Jennings said
it's important to involve the whole family in talking about
the real meaning of the holidays, whether it be Thanksgiving,
Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. Families also need to establish
their own way of celebrating the holidays and develop their
own traditions.
“Traditions
anchor us; they root us,” he said.
Dr. Jennings said
families could choose a theme for the holidays, then make
decorations and perhaps even choose gifts based on that theme.
The holidays also could be an opportunity for families to
celebrate their ethnic heritage or learn more about other
cultures, he said. Preparing foods and decorations connected
to those cultures could become a fun family tradition as well
as a learning experience, he said.
Dr. Jennings said
holidays should be a time of celebration and fun, with less
emphasis on the commercial aspects and more focus on spending
time together.
It's often the simple things that bring meaning to the holidays,
he said. Playing games together, having a movie night or singing
around the piano can make lasting memories. Choosing a Christmas
tree is a family activity that can bring the joy of doing
things together.
Families also could
connect the holiday seasons to nature by camping, hiking or
even having snowball fights. Rather than go to the after-Christmas
sales,
Dr. Jennings said,
families could plan a picnic or some other activity that would
bring them together.
“It's togetherness
that matters during the holidays,” he said. “Commercialism
tends to erode the meaning.”
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