The Holidays Aren't Cheery for Everyone

It's a pretty well-known fact that when the "Season to be jolly" rolls around, not everyone's in a festive mood. Millions of citizens are alone. They have few if any friends. Family might be very distant or non-existent. For countless thousands, depression only worsens. Therefore, these people, when they see the holiday season approach and it prepares to get into high gear, are all-to-aware of not being part of it. Sadly,the situation gets worse as the season progresses. However, American businesses can help alleviate the stress and loneliness for many of these poor souls. Starting next year, they can start cutting back on all the "holiday cheer" they spend millions of dollars trying to promote.

Not everybody has a "Norman Rockwell" sort of life with a mom and dad, children, grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews or cousins sitting joyously, laughing and joking, around a well-stocked dinner table, sharing a family meal large enough to feed the whole neighborhood. Nor do they have that battalion of eager (and often greedy) family members sitting near the carefully decorated and lit Christmas tree as gifts are handed out and unwrapped. For those who are alone, this is a grim reminder of what they do not have...what they cannot share and enjoy.

Seeing all of those smiling, laughing and gladdened "family" members in thousands of colorful and obscenely expensive commercials for products hoping to be sold in order to line the pockets of greedy retailers of all makes and models only deepens the problem. Old yuletide films and all those newly generated to warm the hearts and souls of American families, seen running ceaselessly from October (or earlier) through December, can also prove extremely difficult to bear for people who have...nobody.

So, Corporate America, stop pushing to nauseating levels the "joy and cheer" of the season and reel in the pomp and ceremony of the "Holiday Season" just a bit (well, maybe a lot). You might not make as much money (Yeah, sure!). But then again, you will have saved millions of dollars trying to coax people to buy things they don't really need at discount prices they still can't afford. And at the same time, you will have shown a little compassion for those who are alone...and often forgotten.