It's not as much commercialism as it is, as I stated, the weakening of the religious meaning to the day. Friend of mine is a Priest, and even agreed with me on a few points I had before. My grandparents went to church everyday. We're highly religious, and still are. My mom went to church all the time as a young child, but less and less as she got older. Me, I have never been to church, and only stepped foot inside of one once in my life. But they still celebrate easter (We went over there today) even though me and my brother's don't have much meaning for it, we eat dinner and such with them. And such that tradition will continue, as I will do with my children with my parents, and possibly grandparents and so forth. It'll slowly lose the meaning, but it'll still be a tradition to sit down on easter and have a big family meal. Thanksgiving is truly the same way. Some people give thanks, most others just use it as a reason to get together and have a big dinner together. Not to be thankful for everything they have, even though being together and with their love ones they may think it quietly. It's just become a tradition amongst families. Christmas was to celebrate the birth of christ, instead everyone gives presents. It was a tradition started many years ago, and has continued on and on. I knew it was the birth of christ when I was younger, but I didn't know christ was the son of god til I was maybe 10 or 11? So to me it was celebrating the birth of some old king (songs say the newborn king), and we for some reason celebrated it by giving out gifts. !@#$%^&*, religion itself is a tradition. It's stories and teachings passed from 1 generation to the next on their beliefs of how people we're put on this earth. So don't be so !@#$%^&* bitter about people celebrating their traditions, cause I can just as easily say your tradition is dumb and pointless, as it is to me, but instead I respect it, as you should mine.