Imagine Christmas before this era of digital deals.

It’s hard to pin down a time when the “most wonderful time of the year” became a stressful mad dash into the underbelly of crass commercialism. We can look to the last century to see the “make a buck” mentality on full parade through most of this era. The big change of the past two decades has been the internet explosion that has allowed discrete days like “Black Friday” to extend into the week before, the week after, and so on. Cyber Monday seems to occupy an entire week, and as any working person will tell you — who needs a whole week of Mondays?

Christmas shopping is chaotic in the modern era. Stores are filled, mall parking lots overflowing, and yet online shopping is robust too.

Are we having fun yet?

There has to be some meaning in our quixotic quest for a simpler, cozier, perfect Christmas. Think about all the little nostalgic villages you can piece together under your tree or on a tabletop: the half-timbered bakery, the general store with its leaded windowpanes, the scarved figurines merrily skating across a snow-limned pond as tall gas lights beckon the weary shopper to one of the cottages lining the quiet street.

We cling to shows and movies that glorify simplicity and nature. The romantic Christmas nostalgia that comes alive at this time of year isn’t really about stuff. It’s about crackling fires and woodland scenery, the smell of nutmeg and cinnamon, and our place in the natural world as represented by skiing, skating, strolling beside half-frozen ponds.

What does this yearly binge tell us about our cravings? Maybe we should, as individuals, communities, and a nation, make those craved interactions and activities our priority all year. The technocracy tells us we must yield to the march of “progress,” but our deepest selves return every year to those nostalgic habits we most deeply desire, and they are the spectral comforts of Christmas past. The tumbling technocracy cannot eradicate these vestiges of uncomplicated living that define our humanity and beg for expression and renewal at this time of year.

What is it about the past that inspires such tenacious nostalgia?

Think about Christmas in the 1840s. There were medical horrors like scarlet fever. Nobody gets sick now, right?

Drinking water was bad then, creating outbreaks of cholera and other horrors. Certainly that could never happen again; we’re so much more civilized now! Of course, suspended disbelief requires overlooking Flint. And all the other cities like it. Bah, humbug.

The problem with nostalgia and perceptions of progress is that while reasonable people tout their superiority over wearers of rose-colored glasses, the so-called reasonable position assumes that time marches forward in a positive direction. The truth is more complicated. Until true generosity of spirit takes over, not just at Christmas, but year-round, there is no real progress. There are only two steps forward and one step back. Or vice-versa. Until we stop propping up a dysfunctional bipartisan political system, we will continue to tolerate a few more decades of pain for most people while the American dream is reserved for multinational banks and corporate executives.

In many ways, it wasn’t this bad in the 1840s.

If we were 1845 Fredonians, what would our Christmas environment be like? Christmas shopping wasn’t such a phenomenon in that era. But if a person wanted to shop, there was the usual array of stores selling every conceivable product: baked goods, meat, furniture, books, clothing, crockery, scarves, gloves, glassware. To light your home, you might stop in one of the local variety stores for winter-strained lamp oil or pure sperm oil. Tea sold for 50 cents a pound. A well-heeled, ambitious shopper might savor the purchase of an iron stove, most likely made nearby and sold by a local shop owner.

Sure, you can pick up most of these items at Big Box America. But what fun is that? What did 1840s Fredonia most closely resemble-nostalgic Christmas tabletop villages, or Walmart?

Perhaps the key to a more widely realized American dream lies in those nostalgic scenes and images. Happy Christmas to all.

Renee Gravelle is a Dunkirk resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com