本帖最后由 小明啊 于 2011-12-29 15:43 编辑
【中文标题】美国人民和圣诞节说拜拜
【原文标题】Just say no to Christmas?
【登载媒体】今日美国
【来源地址】http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-12-22/cutting-back-christmas-spending/52144864/1
【译者】小明啊
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】欢迎转载，请务必注明译者和出处 bbs.m4.cn。
Susan Lee, a divorced mother of three in New York City, is taking a drastic step this year. "No Christmas for me," she says. "No gifts, no turkey, no tree, no kidding." Lee, 41, a marketing consultant, says she needs a break from the stress and spending that are integral parts of the holiday. Her kids will celebrate a traditional Christmas with their dad, but she's ignoring all the rituals. 纽约一个有着三个娃娃的单亲妈妈李苏三，今年准备坚决执行她为自己定下的“姐不过圣诞”这一观点。她这样说：“不要礼物，不要火鸡，不要圣诞树，不玩耍。” 李苏三，41岁，营销顾问，她认为，既然放假了，那么就要趁着节假日缓解压力，好好休息，这才是节假日该有的活动。她的宝贝们可以去和他们爸爸庆祝圣诞节，而她则决定忽略所有关于圣诞节的传统。 "I start dreading Christmas from the time the decorations go up in the stores," she says. "It stopped being fun for me, so I'll find out this year if I can do without it altogether. I think it will be a relief. It already is." The holiday is in no danger of extinction. Retail sales broke records over the Thanksgiving weekend, and online sales are up 15% from 2010, according to ComScore, a research company. A Gallup Poll found that Americans expect to spend an average of $764 on Christmas gifts, $50 more than a year ago. And forecasters expect spending on Christmas to rise 3.1% to $3.4 billion this holiday season. “我现在都有圣诞恐惧症了，一到商店里开始装饰着圣诞饰品的时候，我就肝颤，”她说。“这对我来说再也不是什么开心的节日了，所以，如果我今年压根不过圣诞节，这对我来说是个解脱，现在看来，果真如此。” 这个节日如此火爆，绝对不会像其他传统节日一样面临着消亡的危险。根据康姆思科（一个调查公司）提供的数据，零售业又在感恩节打破记录了，线上交易比2010年提高百分之十五。而盖洛普民意调查表示，每个美国人平均要花上764美元来购买圣诞礼物，并且每年以50美元的额度递增。预测员预测，本年度圣诞支出将增长百分之三点一，也就是今年圣诞季支出将达34个亿。 Still, says Leah Ingram, who runs the Suddenly Frugal blog at suddenlyfrugal.com, many people are scaling way back this year, if not opting out of Christmas completely. Homemade presents and shared experiences are replacing expensive store-bought gifts among people who are feeling the pinch financially and those who object to the season's rampant consumerism. "Everybody has too much stuff, and maybe that's where it's coming from," Ingram says. Some people simply loathe the holiday. A Facebook search for "I hate Christmas" turns up dozens of results, including pages and posts from people who say they despise almost everything about Christmas: music, shopping, family gatherings, trees and lights. 尽管如此，一个名叫“立马省钱”博客的运营者利亚说，如果不是要取消圣诞节的话，很多人这个时候正在往家赶，很多手头紧张或者反对圣诞这个消费猖獗时期的人们会自己做圣诞礼物来取代商场里那些昂贵的小东东。 “每个人都有太多的东西，也许就是这个时候得到的。”利亚说 一些人只是单纯的厌恶这个节日。脸书上一个关于“我恨圣诞”的一个调查里收集了一大堆结果。这些人们说他们恨有关圣诞的一切，比如：圣诞曲，购物，家庭聚会，圣诞树和彩灯。 Others have no choice but to downsize Christmas. Kate Pearson, 33, a single mom in Atlanta, lost her secretarial job in January and has told her two children that they're starting new traditions this year.
They drew a festive, 6-foot tree on craft paper and taped it to a wall. "Instead of gifts, which I can't afford, we're writing letters to each other that we will open on Christmas morning," she says. "We're going to tell each other what we love about our family. And that's it."
Pearson says she's looking forward to a bare-bones Christmas. "I cringe when I think of all the money I've spent in previous years on Christmas plates, napkins, candy, decorations and junk," she says. "Never again, even after I find a new job." 还有一些人别无选择，只能尽量的简化圣诞节。凯特 ，33岁，亚特兰大的一位单亲妈妈，一月份把她那份秘书工作丢了，因此不得不告诉她的两个孩子，他们今年的圣诞可能和传统的圣诞不太一样。 他们在工艺纸上花了个六英尺长的圣诞树，把它挂在墙上。“用这个代替我买不起的礼物吧，我们还给对方写了信，会在圣诞节的早上打开它，”她说。“我们对对方诉说对这个家的热爱，就这些。” 凯特说她一直期待着能有一个极简的圣诞节。“每当我想起来前几年我花在圣诞上的钱，我就畏畏缩缩的了，那些圣诞节盘子，餐具，糖果，小装饰，那些垃圾。”她说，“这些再也不会有了，除非我找到一份新工作。” Watching their spending 看看他们的消费 Sarah Stewart Holland loves Christmas, but there's a lot less of it in her life this year. She and her husband, Nicholas Holland, decided that real Christmas trees are too expensive, so they borrowed an artificial one from her parents. They're not buying gifts for their son Griffin, 2, or his brother Amos, 6 months. They stashed some of the presents Griffin received for his birthday and will wrap and put them under the tree.
They'll e-mail holiday cards instead of buying and mailing traditional cards.
They won't exchange presents with each other or family members. Instead of their usual holiday open house, they'll have a potluck dinner with their closest friends.
萨拉喜欢圣诞节，但是今年比起她之前的圣诞节要少了很多。 她和她的老公，本来想搞一个真圣诞树的，但是那太贵了，所以就跟她爸妈借了个仿真的圣诞树。 他们没有给他们2岁和6个月的儿子们买礼物，他们之前藏了一些大儿子过生日时收到的礼物，他们把这些用花花纸包好，放在树下。 他们还用电子邮件代替传统贺卡。他们没有和家人或者其他人交换礼物，而是请了一些亲密的朋友来家里吃大餐。 "We're trying to be conscious about our spending," says Stewart Holland, 30, who lives in Paducah, Ky., and blogs at saltandnectar.com. She and her husband, 32, both are paying off student loans from law school. There's another reason for paring Christmas hoopla, she says: "We want to live more conscientiously and not just do something because we've always done it." She's dubbed their holiday strategy "Christmas without consuming."
Mark O'Brien, 47, a Chicago computer analyst, says he can afford Christmas; he just doesn't want anything to do with it. O'Brien, who is single, has turned down invitations to share Christmas dinner with friends and plans to spend the day in front of his TV, watching basketball games and eating pizza. "I"m not a Scrooge," he says, "but I'm not religious, and I don't like all the forced frivolity of the season. "My friends and family know I care about them, and I don't need to give them presents or sing carols with them to prove it." “我们有意识的注意到我们的花费，”30岁的斯图尔特在 saltandnectar.com.上的博客说，她和她32岁的老公，刚还清念法学院时的助学贷款。 还有一个原因是圣诞派对，她说：“我们想生活的更加踏实，而不是人云亦云，为做而做。”她戏称他们的节日理念是"圣诞节不消耗。" 马克，芝加哥的一名47岁的计算机分析师，说他可以负担的起圣诞，但是他就是不乐意做。马克还是个单身，已经拒绝了朋友邀请他一起吃大餐，聚聚会的提议，他打算我在沙发上宅一天，看看球赛，吃吃比萨。 “我不是小气，我只是不信宗教，而且我也不喜欢一切这样轻浮的，被迫性接受的节日。”他说。“而且我的朋友和家人们也知道我是关心他们的，我不需要通过送礼物唱赞歌来表现，他们都知道我的。” Getting more relaxed 变得更轻松 Some people who have downscaled their Christmas celebrations say the change made them saner, more relaxed and less indebted. Jim Arnold, 56, a writer in Los Angeles, spent Christmas in Brazil a few years ago. The low-key approach there, he says, made him realize he could "disconnect" from consumerism and redefine his own holiday. He stopped buying gifts and sending cards but says he still looks forward to "the parties and the cookies." "People drive themselves crazy over Christmas," he says, "and I don't think very many of them are really happy about it." Ingram says some gentle etiquette is required when a person decides to stop gift-giving in a family that expects it. "Opting out of the commercialism of the holidays works only if everybody buys into it, and that's where it gets tricky," she says. In some cases, it might mean forgoing a family gathering where gifts are exchanged to avoid an "incredibly awkward" moment, she says. 一些人说，不过圣诞，让他们头脑更清楚，更轻松，也没有负债了。 吉米，56岁了，是洛杉矶的一名作家。几年前开始在巴西过圣诞，那里的圣诞处理的很低调，这让他能把消费主义和圣诞“分离”开，也让他重新定义他自己的圣诞。他不再买礼物也不再寄贺卡，但是他说他还是被圣诞派对和甜点们勾的不行。。“人们让自己在圣诞疯狂，但是我不认为他们中的大多数是真正开心的。” 英格拉姆说，当一个人决定在家庭里停止交换礼物，那么温柔的礼仪是必须的。“拒绝假日商业化只有在所有人都认同或者热衷于这件事情 。。。。。。而这会变得非常微妙 ”有的时候，这可以避免在家庭聚会交换礼物时发生“尴尬”，她说。 When Rob Weir and his wife, Emily, suggested an end to family gift exchanges a few years ago, relatives "were shocked by it," he says. "They thought we were parsimonious or that we didn't care anymore. We realized we needed a strategy." They dropped hints long before Christmas that they didn't really need gifts for themselves, says Weir, a history professor in his 50s who lives in Northampton, Mass. Gradually, they discovered that many of their family members felt the same way about buying presents for everyone. "It took two or three years before the relatives got on board," he says. "You have to kind of phase it in." Now the Weirs make charitable donations in the names of their relatives. Instead of family gatherings, they dine out with friends. Occasionally, they buy a bottle of wine for friends, and they treat themselves to a concert or show and buy a new ornament for their tree instead of exchanging gifts with each other. "I sort of let the season happen," Weir says. "There's more freedom in our schedule if we don't have to spend time at the mall." When he mentions his new holiday traditions to friends now, he says, they often say, "Oh, what a good idea." 居住在北安普顿的50 多岁的历史教授罗博和妻子艾米丽倡议停止交换礼物已经有很多年了，但是他的亲戚们刚接受这套理论的时候非常震惊，觉得这夫妻俩太吝啬，并且不关心别人。罗博意识到，让亲戚们接受这些将需要过程。 他们在圣诞之前很久就准备哪些他们不需要的礼物，久而久之，他们发现很多他们的家庭成员对于买礼物也有同感。“我用了两三年的时间使人们接受这些，他说。"要有一个循序渐进的过程。” 现在罗博用家族的名义做慈善，来代替家庭聚会，他们和朋友出去聚餐。偶尔，他们也会给朋友买瓶酒，有时候犒劳自己也会去看场表演，或者给他们的圣诞树买点小装饰，用这些来代替交换礼物。 “我希望这个节日能更快乐，如果我们把去商场买礼物的大量时间节省下来，那么我们的圣诞日程表上就会有更多的空闲时间了。"当他把他这些想法告诉其他朋友时，他的朋友们都惊呼：“这真是个好主意！” Change is 'liberating' 转变，自由释放 Irene Levine wrote a column for The Huffington Post in 2008 explaining why she was skipping Christmas. She wanted to save gas by not going to malls, save trees by sending fewer cards and save money, she wrote. Besides, she noted, she's a secular Jew who wondered "how I got sucked into this tradition anyway." "I was losing the joy of both shopping and gifting," she says now. The change "was liberating" and resulted in much less stressful holidays, says Levine, a New York University psychiatry professor and writer. Before the column, she bought about 60 holiday gifts. She's easing back into giving now, but she'll still dispense only about 20 this year, mostly gift cards. "It's less anxiety-producing because it feels like there's more room for pleasure and less need for perfunctory gifts," she says. Some people who wish they could have a full-blown Christmas celebration cannot, says Joan Rhodes of Neighbors Inc., a community service organization in the St. Paul suburbs. A year ago, she says, Neighbors Inc. was helping about 230 families with food aid; in November, the number was 344. More than 700 people have signed up for adopt-a-family Christmas programs so they can receive clothing and toys. For most clients, Rhodes says, "There simply isn't enough money for food, much less to buy presents." Each year, she says, the organization receives notes after Christmas that say, "If it wasn't for Neighbors, we would not have had a Christmas." 纽约大学的精神学教授，同时也是一位作家的艾琳在08年的时候在赫芬顿邮报做了个柱状图，来分析她为什么不过圣诞。他她想省去开车去购物的油钱，她想少发点贺年卡已拯救树木，顺便也能省钱。 另外，她表明，她是一个传统的犹太人，她十分惊讶自己会被这种异教传统卷进去。 "我现在对购物和礼物没兴趣啊，”她说。这种对待圣诞的态度是种解放，也为假期减小了压力。在做这个专栏的时候，艾琳买了差不多60件圣诞礼物。大部分的礼物她退回了，但是她还是至少流下了20件礼物用来芬达，大部分是礼品卡。“这些礼品卡可以让人们买一些自己真正需要的东西，总比那些敷衍的礼物要好。” 圣保罗一家社区服务组织，邻居公司的琼说，很多人想过一个原汁原味的圣诞节，却不能够。她说，一年来，邻居公司给予230多个家庭粮食援助，在十一月份，这个数字打倒344.有多过700人参加了“我们都是一家人”的圣诞活动，这样他们就可以收到衣服和玩具了。琼说：“对于大多数客户而言，他们没有足够的钱去买食物，更不用说礼物了。”每年，他们的社区服务组织会在圣诞过后收到留言，这样说：“如果不是你们，我们不会有圣诞节。”
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