Gift giving is a common ritual custom in most cultures, although not specifically related to religious ritual.

Common gift giving rituals take place at significant stages in life, like birth, marriage, and death.

Because most societies which constitute "Western culture" are now rooted in capitalist customs regarding gift-giving, (ie, not just gifts at the time of birth of a child, but throughout one's lifetime), and new "holiday" gift giving rituals are being added all the time (like Valentine's Day, Mother & Father's Day, etc), it is to a certain extent "commercial" I suppose. But in a capitalist society like ours, it has more to do with social status than anything else.

Hence the belief that people who are not able to participate in the capitalist ritual of gift giving at this time of year, must become charity cases, and we see this tremendously offensive effort (in my mind it is offensive, that is) to "donate" to the "Toys for Tots" and other once a year charity drives to provide poor people with consumer goods they really don't need, while filling the capitalist coffers and buying off the social consciences of the millions of people who donate to this gift giving debacle at Christmas, while ignoring the genuine needs of the poor the rest of the year.

We are seeing the same phenomenon take place now with the obscene amounts of money raised for families of 9/11. Families of NYC firefighters are said now to be getting a million dollars each, while the poorest victims families have seen little to no money. We Americans sure do get our priorities screwed up when it comes to acting out our guilty consciences, IMO.