Topic: Consumerism

Christmas time is round the corner. Lights, snow, joy,...consumerism! I can hardly see Santa with his sledge and offering joy and happiness but a lot of companies bombing us with their enticing ads on TV rather.  Everything they want us to do is consume as much as we can and the earlier, the better.

The black arts of psychological advertising were first developed after the last world war, when psychologists come into the field and advised the 'ad' men about the best ways to make commercialism into a religion, an ego trip of consumption, so was born the 'shopaholic.'

Nowadays, it seems as if Christmas time began right after Summer. In the United States, we could say that people start arranging their Christmas stuff on Thanksgiving's Day (last Thursday of November). But who says when Christmas is here? It goes without saying that we all know that Christmas's eve is on 24th December but joy and Christmas glee are floating in the air much earlier (that's not the case for Charles Dickens' character, Scrooge) . On the one hand, people tend to like this time of year because it is a good reason to get together with one's family, share special moments and forget about their problems. On the other hand, everybody tends to spend a lot of money with special food and presents. Sometimes the world forgets about those who can't afford a simple meal on a cold winter's night.

To be round the corner = estar a la vuelta de la esquina
sledge = trineo
enticing = alentador
to advise = aconsejar
shopaholic = adicto a las compras