20點...急急急...英文作文"Religion and festiuals"

In a much publicized shopping trip, George and Barbara Bush headed off to J. C. Penney's and the mall the day after Thanksgiving last year to buy some Christmas gifts. More than the usual photo opportunity, their holiday excursion was a morality tale for the nation, a model for emulation. Christmas shopping was cast as an act of good citizenship, a way to jar the country's lethargic economy out of the doldrums. From the perspective of civic faith, the trumpeted visit of the president and his wife to a department store served to inaugurate and solemnize the Christmas season. The mall, not the church or the White House, was the recognized venue for this rite.[1] In American culture the marketplace serves all too obviously as a primary arena for Christmas preparation, observance, and enthrallment--a central location for the commemoration and promotion of one of Christianity's highest holy days. The consumer culture exercises a formative influence on a wide range of American holidays and celebrations, but the peculiar ironies of this commercial puissance are never more poignant than during the season of Jesus' advent.