we all can decide how much of which holiday we want to celebrate. Children need something, if their religion allows...but the rest of us can go down to absolute zero in terms of cooking, shopping, entertaining other adults. If there are children, they can do all the decorating, most of the cooking (slice and bake cookies if necessary) and pick out a couple of special events. Just because they build it we don't need to go. But shopkeepers etc. need to earn a living and this is their best time. People working in little alley sweatshops in the third world, sad as it is, probably make much of their living by making trinkets. They need to eat. I say take or leave it but let others enjoy it and profit from it. mg