**TL; DR. National holidays, including both secular and religious festivals such as Easter, Christmas and Valentine’s day continue to be heavily celebrated traditions. However, it is becoming more apparent that these occasions are being increasingly dissociated from their traditional origins and cultural meanings due to modern day commercialisation.** Origins of holidays such as St. Valentine’s day are commonly not well known and are instead overshadowed by capitalist consumerism, through becoming ever more profit orientated. With Valentine’s spending in the UK is estimated to be in excess of £926 million this year. Similarly, many are familiar with the German festival ‘Oktoberfest’, however few acknowledge that historically it originated to celebrate the marriage between Prince of Bavaria and Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. Instead, it is now associated with the mass consumption of beer and the wearing of 'traditional' lederhosen and dirndl. Over-commercialisation, as a result of capitalist economy, has adversely affected the celebration of national holidays, and in my opinion; removes any sense of meaning from historic tradition. Valentines: https://www.finder.com/uk/valentines-day-statistics Oktoberfest: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Oktoberfest

I personally have a huge issue with Valentine's Day. We don't need an excuse to show our love for people that we care about, we should be doing that every day. Valentines Day is a commercial holiday to drive up sales for flowers and candy. Because of this commercialization of the holiday, I don't know what its original purpose was without Googling it. St. Patrick Day in the United States is another good example. It is celebrated by the consumption of beer and wearing the color green. Other than that nothing is ever really talked about.

**TL;DR - I agree with the fact that there is over-commercialisation when it comes to holidays, and I personally hate it when we are bombarded with products that make us forget what we celebrate in each occasion. However, I also believe that this commercialisation has a silver lining in that is has created certain holiday traditions we all enjoy**. I am going to focus on my favourite time of year, Christmas. While most people have a preconceived idea of how Santa looks like (the Coca Cola guy with the cute outfit) as well as a hazy notion of what we celebrate at Christmas, there are things that we do during that time that have shaped the holiday in a warm and inviting way. A great example is the Christmas tree and the accompanying decorations, whose commercialization goes back to the Victorian times. As Nicole D'Angelo argues, 'the popularity of Christmas trees can be traced back to an image in Godey’s Lady’s Book, the most widely-read magazine at the time, of Queen Victoria and her family gathered around one'. In the US, the first Christmas tree, Shawn Hessinger writes, appeared in 1747. This, together with all the food that is marketed at Christmas, warms up the holiday and boosts the Christmas atmosphere. We have no idea what the holidays would be like without commercialisation, and I imagine that we would be better off without some of the frivolities of over-commercialisation. But this has shaped the holidays as we know them to a great extent, and I cannot imagine spending Christmas without the tree, the food, and my all-time-favourite *Home Alone* movies. Works Cited D'Angelo, Nicole, 'How Holiday Marketing Built the Holidays: The Story of Our Commercial Christmas' (2017) <https://www.skyword.com/contentstandard/how-holiday-marketing-built-the-holidays-the-story-of-our-commercial-christmas/> [accessed 17 February 2021]. Hessinger, Shawn, 'How Did Christmas Become Commercialized?' (2015) <https://smallbiztrends.com/2015/12/christmas-become-commercialized.html> [accessed 17 February 2021].

**tl;dr – The commercial aspects of national holidays can drive celebrations and have hugely positive effects on society.** Over-commercialisation may adversely affect national holidays by distracting from traditional origins, however without commercialisation there would be less celebration which could lead to the death of such traditions completely. Like clockwork, at the end of every November we are reminded to get into the Christmas spirit through the competitive advertisement market as John Lewis, Sainsburys and Coca Cola fight to be the favourite of the nation. Although, this may not be the most ideal way to remember Christ or the holiday of giving, it does act as a catalyst for such practices. It is important to note that commercialism is not some modern-day issue, but something that has occurred for many years. Commercialism has contributed, and continues to contribute, to the most important associations with national holidays making them what they are today. In particular, Charles Dickens' *A Christmas Carol*, that brought about the wishing of a 'Merry Christmas' and the infamous Christmas character Ebenezer Scrooge, was not produced out of the pure goodness of the author's heart to improve the traditions of national holidays, but instead it was a commercial product. It was not that Dickens *wanted* to write the novella, but instead he *needed* to as he was in dire need of cash. His most recent novel in 1843 (*The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit*) was selling so poorly that his publishers were threatening to decrease his salary, despite the success of his previous works (*Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop* etc.). And so, he wrote 30,000 words in just six weeks in order to get *A Christmas Carol* ready before the national holiday. Unfortunately, his publishers wouldn't fund the publication meaning Dickens, himself, risked his money on this commercial product. Undeniably, the risk paid off. His didactic novella had monumental effects on Victorian society reminding people not to neglect poor children as this robs them of their future as 'without learning, shelter, food and healthcare, vulnerable children would grow up quickly, and potentially into criminals - if they were to make adulthood at all'. Consequently, Dickens travelled all over the country to speak to all people of the social spectrum about the importance of education. The widely unknown tale behind this widely known book is testament to the modern-day commercialism that has the potential to have positive moral effects on society as National Holidays are always a time for loving and giving be it to family, friends or strangers - something that the John Lewis advert like this never fails to remind us of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5RhP3H3G7w Vincent, Alice (2020). 'Moral outrage and the need for 'a hit': the real story of why Dickens wrote 'A Christmas Carol'. *Penguin*. Accessible at: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/november/charles-dickens-a-christmas-carol-story-of.html

I think the original argument served as an effective positive statement but an unconvincing normative one. I do not doubt that commercialization and capitalism have overtaken many traditions in holidays. However, I failed to see the adverse effects of that. Traditions and cultures change, often according to the environment. In our current climate, some consumer practices have simply become more relevant to some older traditions. Holidays celebrate the important and good aspects of life, and I would argue matters such as production or consumption have become an important barometer for life quality. Hence, the growing connections between consumption and holidays do not represent the death of culture, but rather a new form of culture. Furthermore, the new traditions have opened up holiday joy to more diverse groups of people. Many of the traditional holidays were very culturally specific. While that does not constitute a negative matter (in fact, I believe people should be encouraged to practice them), it may have fallen out of step with the growing diversity in different regions. Hence, the commercialization of holidays represents merely a natural product of capitalism and globalization. I see no moral good or bad about such an evolution. Of course, one may be inclined to label capitalism as inherently bad. In this case, I would argue that old traditions become replaced by new ones all the time. If not capitalism, a different cultural trend would have.