Every year there is some hullabaloo about the commercialization of Christmas.  While we're still in the season at this writing and mailing (Remember there are Twelve Days of Christmas), I'm going to throw in my two cents worth, for what-ever it's worth.
My thinking is that the hullabaloo gets started each year by cousins of those grinches who want to steal Christmas in other ways.  They are related to those who, in the name of multicultural diversity and a wrongly defined charity, prefer Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas. 
The hullabaloo about the commer-cialization of Christmas bears just enough truth to make it believable and so it starts growing and gets louder until Christmas people can feel guilty about celebrating and shopping for Christmas.  Bah, humbug!
I believe we must, instead, acknow-ledge that shoppers help ring the bell for a lot of people.  They keep the engines of the economy running, not to mention electric trains under the Christmas tree.  Shoppers are good for business, for store clerks, for janitors.  They are good for families and workers of all kinds.
If December is the month when some shoppers drown in a flood of bills  be-cause of overspending (not a good thing), December is also the month when many business people finally lift their head above the water and are able to pay their bills.  Christmas shoppers are the only reason that some business people survive.
Unless the gifts we buy are absolutely totally useless and wasteful (and why would anybody buy those kind?), shop-ping at Christmas time is more sensible --and noble -- than roasting chestnuts or throwing snowballs
If grinch cousins manage to stifle the Christmas shoppers, they would in fact be getting rid of an important tradition that began over 2,000 years ago.  I'm talking about the shopping tradition, of course.
Remember the gold, frankincense, and myrrh?  It was the Three Kings who made gifts part of the manger scene.  These weren't practical gifts either, like milk and cookies or warm blankets and sandals.  According to what I've read, gold, frankincense, and myrrh were valuable items of the ancient world.  Today it would be like giving a gift card, an exquisite aromatic candle, or a bottle of rare perfume.
Shopping for gifts at Christmas time is a matter of ancient tradition, you see, in honor and in celebration of a birth that changed the history of the world forever.  For the most part, it is a good thing.  Deck the halls with boughs of holly; 'tis the season to be jolly.  Good Christian men, rejoice!  We wish you a Merry Christmas.  Go tell it on the mountain!
Did the Three Kings overspend?  Did they overdo it?  Should they, instead, have purchased food for the hungry?  I suggest the Three Kings also fed the hungry and provided for others along the way.  It's the nature of such souls.
If people want to talk about right and wrong, it is my opinion that shopping at Christmas time is right.  It is not an insignificant part of Christmas.  Shopping for others is a way humans can express love and joy.  There is a special warmth at Christmas time.
Christmas is the one time of year when people of goodwill hustle and bustle entirely for the sake of other people.  They shop, they wrap, they shop, they decorate, they shop, they cook, they shop, they clean.  It's a wonderful thing, all of it together, to prepare and plan for others in big and little ways.
I suggest that Christmas shoppers are very aware of the Reason for the season.
I suggest that the people who give gold, frankincense, and myrrh - and people who give milk and cookies, warm blankets and sandals - are the same people who also give in other important ways.
I suggest that shoppers also visit the sick, feed the hungry, and clothe the poor.  I suggest that shoppers also give to the soup kitchen, to the food shelf, to the hospital, to the church.  Generosity in one area breeds generosity in other areas.  Christmas shoppers are not couch potatoes and grinches.  They are not the Scrooges.  The shoppers are the givers.
Cheers to the shoppers!  Don't let all that hullabaloo bother you too much.  I hope the New Year is good to you.