A belated Merry Christmas to everyone! We had a wonderful time celebrating the holiday with our family. I think we did a good job of balancing the fine line between being cheap and being frugal. This is quite an accomplishment with all of the pressure to spend, spend, spend this time of year. While friends posted pictures with presents piled high on every side of the tree, we took our time opening a few special gifts. One thing that added to our spirit was listening to Christmas music.
The Yachtless recently challenged bloggers to post about #pfmessages, hidden messages about money that appear in popular culture. After reading her post, I found myself driving home from work and listening to Christmas music. Instead of just enjoying the familiar tunes, I decided to analyze the messages objectively. What was the result?
I found that the majority of traditional Christmas music conveys positive messages. Yes, there are a few about buying things. For example, “Santa Baby” which demands diamond rings and other expensive gifts. There are songs about Santa bringing “a toy for each good girl and boy,” which isn’t too bad, in just giving one gift to each child. Another silly one about gifts was “I wanna hippopotamus for Christmas.” However, there were so many more songs with wholesome messages about family, treating others with kindness, and about the birth of Jesus. From “The Little Drummer Boy” to “My Grown Up Christmas List” and “Simply Having A Christmas Time.”
The overall mix of music with good messages gave me hope about the celebration of Christmas, despite the materialism that seems to have taken over. Of course, I was listening to the radio, so the commercials eventually broke through the jingle bells. There was one for a community college, and another suggesting that you purchase aquarium passes as a gift (I am a big proponent of giving experiences over stuff). The worst one for a cosmetic center, touting a “tremendous deal” of a $500 gift certificate for only $300. The ad went on to alert the audience that they also offered financing, because women deserve to give themselves a gift (a gift of debt!).
Our simple celebration incorporated Christmas music, but we used Pandora so there were far fewer commercials encouraging us to spend money. The kids each got a few special gifts. We hosted family members with a non-traditional Christmas feast, instead of a big expensive dinner, we snacked on appetizers and cookies. It was all pretty low-key, and wonderful. It was perfect.
My mother is not very frugal, but I was impressed with her find of wrapping paper that doubles as coloring pages. The kids have loved filling in all of the Christmas shapes.
I hope everyone enjoyed some time off from work with their families. Here’s to a 2016 filled with purposeful living towards a better version of success!
That’s cool that most of the Christmas music messages were positive! I wouldn’t necessarily have expected that, given the commercialization of Christmas, so it’s good to hear! (Too bad the ads get in the way, but I guess that’s what we get for not paying for music!)
Thanks for the contribution! 🙂
I was expecting a lot more about presents and shopping too. It was a pleasant surprise to hear so many more songs with more meaningful messages. Thanks for giving me the idea!
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I often feel like I’m a Scrooge around Christmas time. While I love seeing family and friends it definitely gets tight on the budget when you feel obligated to buy stuff for EVERYONE. As much as I try to limit our family’s Christmas budget, we once again spent more than we planned.
It’s nice to know that Christmas music has stayed away from the consumer aspect of the holidays – for the most part. 🙂
Happy New Years!
Thanks – you too! We did pretty well for Christmas. I didn’t feel too cheap, because the homemade gifts turned out really nice.