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It’s Christmas.
圣诞节到了。
As children tumble out of bed and flock to the tree, parents groggily make a cup of coffee to watch the main event.
孩子们从床上滚下来，蜂拥到树上，父母们昏昏沉沉地煮了一杯咖啡来观看主要活动。
The annual unwrapping of presents.
那就是一年一度的拆礼物活动。
A dopamine filled experience for little kids hoping for that new toy, pair of pants, or for this kid a “Nintendo 64.”
对于想要新玩具、新裤子或是这个想要任天堂64的小孩子来说，这是一种多巴胺满溢的体验。
As someone who grew up celebrating Christmas, I can relate to that feeling.
作为一个从小到大都会庆祝圣诞节的人，我能体会到这种感觉。
When I was younger the surprise and satisfaction of receiving the action figure you always wanted was electric.
当我还小的时候，收到自己一直想要的玩偶时的惊喜和满足感很令人兴奋。
But as I grow older, the phenomenon of Christmas has taken on a different hue.
但随着我年龄的增长，圣诞节的现象呈现出了不同的色彩。
Christmas, especially in the US, has transformed into something more than a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus.
圣诞节，尤其是在美国，已经不仅仅是庆祝耶稣诞生的基督教节日了。
It’s become the epitome of capitalism itself.
它已经成为了资本主义本身的缩影。
With rampant waste, emissions, and labor abuses, the season of Christmas has been co-opted wholesale by capital.
随着浪费、排放和劳工滥用的猖獗，圣诞季已经被资本大量利用。
But Christmas wasn’t always like this.
但圣诞节并非一直是这样的。
It was actually the opposite.
事实上，之前的情况恰恰相反。
Today we dive into that history in order to understand how this turned into this.
今天，我们就来深入研究这段历史，好了解这一切是如何演变成这样的。
Why we consume so much on Christmas, and how past holiday revelries might offer up a path towards a more environmental just celebration of Christmas.
了解为什么我们在圣诞节有这么多消费，以及过去的节日狂欢如何提供了一条更环保的圣诞节庆祝方式。
Today, we discover how capitalism stole christmas, and how we can steal it back.
今天，我们来看看资本主义是如何偷走圣诞节的，以及我们如何才能把它偷回来。
A day after the US celebrates their settler-colonial origins, the world gets doused with deals on Black Friday.
在美国庆祝其定居者殖民起源的第二天，黑色星期五，全世界都被交易搞得焦头烂额。
And with those deals come a rush of crowds and more recently a mountain of boxes.
伴随着这些交易而来的是蜂拥而至的人群，最近还有堆积如山的箱子。
Spurred on by the companies drumming up hype for the Christmas season through advertising, movies, and music we are drawn to retail stores and online shops ready to buy that brand new gadget for a friend or family that they probably won’t use.
在公司通过广告、电影和音乐为圣诞季大肆宣传的刺激下，我们被吸引到了零售店和网上商店，准备为朋友或家人买他们八成不会用的新品。
This season, which generally starts at the end of November and ends at the start of the new year, is primarily characterized by a month of shopping.
圣诞季通常从11月底开始，到新年伊始结束，主要特点是一个月的购物时间。
Shopping for presents that a bearded white man in a red suit will then sneak under a tree in houses all across the world.
买什么样的礼物呢，就是一个身穿红色套装，留着胡子的白人男子，会从树下偷偷溜到世界各地的房子里时带来的那种。
Shopping that fuels more than a third of toy retailers’s yearly profit in just three months.
这些购物活动在短短三个月的时间里，就能为玩具零售商贡献超过三分之一的年利润。
We spend so much on presents that a 2016 survey found that 22% of respondents from the US claimed that they went into debt paying for presents and festivities.
我们在礼物上的花费如此之多，以至于2016年的一项调查发现，22%的美国受访者表示，他们曾为了买礼物和庆祝活动而负债。
And it’s all in service of the big day.
这一切都是为了纪念这个大日子。
A day spent with your nuclear family, watching the kids open presents, and then lounging around the rest of the day in your single-family home enjoying your new toys.
花一天时间和你的核心家庭成员在一起，看着孩子们打开礼物，剩下的时间就在你的独栋住宅里闲逛，玩新玩具。
After it’s all done, the trees head to the dump, the wrapping paper gets thrown in the trash, and the dopamine rush wears off, it’s back to business as usual, but this time with a little more stuff to stuff in your closet.
一切都做完后，树木会被送往垃圾场，包装纸被扔进垃圾桶，多巴胺的狂热消失，一切恢复正常，只不过这一次衣橱里有了更多东西。
But Christmas is not some amorphous holiday with no roots, it’s intimately tied to Christianity.
但圣诞节不是一个没有来源的无定形节日，它与基督教息息相关。
For those of the Christian faith, this holiday means celebrating the birth of their messiah.
对于那些信仰基督教的人来说，这个节日的意义是庆祝他们的耶稣基督的诞生。
Although, for as much as Christmas is technically a Christian holiday, the religiosity of it seems to have been wiped clean from advertisements, movies, and revelry.
虽然严格来说圣诞节是一个基督教节日，但广告、电影和狂欢似乎已经把其宗教性抹去了。
Indeed, a Pew Research study found that 9 out of 10 Americans observe Christmas in some way, regardless of whether they identify as Christian.
事实上，皮尤研究中心的一项研究发现，90%的美国人都会以某种方式庆祝圣诞节，无论他们是否自认为是基督徒。
Whether it’s an active celebration of the holiday or feeling pushed to observe it because your Christian society pressures you to, Christmas has become a massive force in our global economy.
无论是主动庆祝这个节日，还是因为基督教社会的压力而被迫庆祝它，圣诞节已经成为全球经济中的一股巨大力量。
One that seems to have eschewed some of its Christian imagery and embraced the symbols and ideology of capitalism.
它似乎避开了一些基督教形象，转而接受了资本主义的象征和意识形态。
The Christmas of today, with its emphasis on cozy material consumption inside a single family home, epitomizes the dreams of the capitalist class.
今天的圣诞节，强调在一户人家里舒适地进行物质消费，是资产阶级梦想的缩影。
Christmas siloes the biological family, and coerces us to buy goods to show our love.
圣诞节把我们的家庭隔离开来，迫使我们买东西来表达我们的爱。
Goods that usually end up wasted or unused and drive capitalist accumulation.
这些商品通常会被浪费或闲置，并推动资本主义积累。
But Christmas in the US wasn’t always like this.
但美国的圣诞节并非一直是这样的。
In fact, it was almost the opposite.
事实上，情况几乎正好相反。
