My parents' neighbors have decked out their houses with wreaths, blinking colored lights, and cheap plastic depictions of the Nativity that glow with a strange, unearthly light.

In the window of my parents' house hangs a different sort of sign, a sign which evokes images of growling, cantankerous misers and grinning grinches. The sign says "BAH HUMBUG" in large, iron letters, with a rat-like figure perched atop the "bug" part.

And while I'm one of those annoying types who revels in the Christmas spirit, I do have one bah humbug gripe that I think everyone should be aware of: commercialization is not a bad thing.

Sure, the merchants and businesses view the holiday season with a mischievous gleam in their eye, the kind of gleam that you see in the face of a kid who has turned parent manipulation into an art form. Businesses see the holiday season as a quick and simple way to cash in € good cheer and religious celebration aside, since those just happen to be minor elements of a very expensive and profitable holiday.

Today, believing that Christmas is soooo over-commercialized is almost as chic as a Giorgio Armani. Cries of "Everyone has lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas, everyone spends too much on gifts, blah, blah, blah..." only echo the same old Christmas rhetoric.

Okay, so you don't believe in commercializing Christmas. Then, in following typical Christmas rhetoric, you and your family/roommate/significant other decided that you are not going to exchange any gifts this year (or the softie version of the same resolution € you can only exchange gifts that are homemade. The homemade clause is especially dangerous since it brings up the issue of what constitutes a homemade gift. Is a card with a macaroni wreath, cottonball clouds, and toilet paper for snow homemade? Technically not, since all those items were purchased at a store just like a gift € unless you grew your own macaroni, but then again, macaroni doesn't grow on trees. )

Any married couple can tell you that the non-exchange is a disaster. On my parents' tenth wedding anniversary, they mutually agreed not to exchange gifts that year (none of the soft-core homemade clauses for them!) After the decision, my dad was as happy as Bill Clinton in a McDonald's booth, since this freed him from agonizing over flowers, chocolates, poems, or an expensive dinner (usually the triple combination worked well). To my mother, this meant exchanging small gifts or cards - no expensive dinner, but the token box of chocolates a must-have.

The mayhem which ensued is far too explicit to print here, but let me say that among family brawls (and anyone who knows my family can testify that the Fillerup Family Fighters take no prisoners and show no mercy), this one ranks as legendary.

What's wrong with commercialization? Giving gifts is part of the true meaning of Christmas. You'll recall that in addition to being surrounded by haystacks and horses, the Christ child was also surrounded by gold, frankincense, and myrrh € gifts from wealthy wise men who took the evening off to trek around after a star and found a stable.

Imagine Mary's appreciation when receiving their gifts. Imagine the warmth, the glow, the happiness in that humble stable, for just as the wise men brought gifts as symbols of their respect, so Christ was a gift to all the people of the world.

The holiday season is the only time of year when people descend "en masse" on malls and department stores to lavish gifts on someone else. My roommate and I spend hours poring over gift shop windows, plotting what we'll purchase and what kind of colored paper we'll wrap it in - these are all gifts for others, not for ourselves. Generosity has always been a part of the true meaning of Christmas. (Now, when you owe more on your credit cards than on your tuition bill, you know that you've been sucked in by the gaudy commercialized Christmas world € like Ross Perot, you don't know when enough is enough. Tame thy shopping habits!)

It might suffice to simply tell the people you love that you appreciate them, but often that isn't enough. We are people who enjoy stories and fables, who learn best through analogies and comparisons, and who rely on symbols to say what we cannot say with words.

Jessie Fillerup is a music education junior.