Christmas Traditions a Source of Depression for Some

The researchers have reached to the conclusion that there are people who make other people feel bad during Christmas, without knowing it. There are certain things which the religious people do, and which the people who belong to other minorities do not appreciate.

The people who belong to other religions were asked to provide answers to certain questions regarding the customs of Christmas. All of them said that when they entered a room and they saw a Christmas tree, they felt sad, and they did not know why. They did not have this custom in their countries, but it is unknown if this custom had this effect on them. The same thing happened with the people whose religion did not celebrate Christmas, as they said that the tree reminded them of the holiday, and because of that they felt bad and sad. Michael Schmitt, who is a social psychologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, was the one who conducted the experiment, and he did not tell his volunteers that the study is actually about Christmas and the effects it has on people. He said that when he asked them to enter in a room which contained a Christmas tree in it, he realized that the people who did not celebrate Christmas, or who did not had the tradition of decorating the tree, felt excluded.

He stated that the experiment was really surprising for him, because the tree was not longer than 12 inches, yet this simple symbol of a holiday which has been taking place for thousands of years, made them feel unfortunate. He did not believe that the Christmas tree could have this effect on the ones who do not celebrate Christmas. Schmitt celebrates Christmas, but he decided to perform this experiment, because more and more people stated that the cities should not be decorated because they feel left out. He believed that the people were into actually affected by those decorations, and that they simply wanted them removed for whatever reasons. He has proven that these people who are in a minatory are really affected by the decorations, because they feel that they are left out. Of course, this does not happen only when it comes to Christmas, or when it comes to other holidays. For example at a family meeting, if one member of the family suffers from a disease which does not allow him to consume certain foods or drinks, the presence of those drinks will make him suffer.

There are many people who have declared dissatisfied by the fact that these people make pressure on the city officials in order to remove the decorations. They said that those people are in a minatory, and they should not make these claims because they do not have the right to do it. They said that the majority should not change just because a small number of people do not like something. They stated that these people are immature, and selfish, and there are many who support these claims. Schmitt asked the people to talk about themselves and about the emotions they feel on two different occasions. On the first occasion they were placed in a room which had Christmas decorations in it, and on the second occasion they were placed in a room which was just like any other regular room. He was aware of the religious beliefs which these people had, as there were 22 people who did not celebrate Christmas and 30 people who celebrated it. He decided from the start that the study will take place during this holiday; otherwise the whole point would have been useless.

They did a second experiment with 47 Christian students, 16 Buddhist students, and 19 Sikh students. On both of the experiments, the Christmas decorations did not made the people feel better, as they do in the case of most of the people. The ones who did not celebrate Christmas said that they felt uncomfortable in the room which had the Christmas tree in it. They said that the decorations did not make them feel better, but that it made them feel worse. They felt stressed, and they even had a feeling of guilt, as they were afraid that the people will judge them because they do not celebrate Christmas. He said that these people did not acted in this manner on purpose, because after the experiment was conducted, he told them the real purpose of the experiment, and he asked them about the effects which they thought that the decorations would have on them. All of them said that they believed that the decorations would make them feel better, but that they did not manage to do it.

Schmitt said that he did not know if they were lying, as some of them might have been embarrassed to admit that they felt bad because of the Christmas decorations. He said that he does not suggest that the Christmas decorations should be removed, but he said that we should understand that there are people who feel left out because of this. He said that we constantly say that we should celebrate diversity, but when this period of time comes, we forget about it, and that we only care about the customs of Christianity. Schmitt said that we should try and incorporate other traditions during this time of year as well. He said that thanks to that, people might not feel left out. Schmitt said that there might be a problem with that, because the Christians might feel left out in case they see that those traditions are used as well, and they might consider them to be disrespect for their traditions. There are many who believe that the tradition will not be modified, because the Christians are the majority, and that it should not be modified because of the minority. They said that if that would happen, we would have to modify it each and every time someone would demand it.