What’s your favorite holiday? Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day? 

Whatever holiday you chose, one thing’s for certain, you can get some pretty good deals at the store. 

First there’s the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a balloon-filled parade sponsored by the huge department store brand, Macy’s.

About 400,000 cubic feet is used to fill up all those balloons in that parade, which is why they legitimately have a contract with NASA to get all that helium.

Helium is a non-renewable resource.

That’s insane to use that much. Just for a three-hour parade? They’ve got to be joking.

Macy’s has been trying methods to recycle the amount of helium for quite some time now, but it’s still clearly not enough.

And their parade is lame anyway.

Next take a look at Black Friday, the global phenomenon (at least in Western countries) that consists of retail stores offering cheaper prices on the fourth Friday of November

This day, which is meant to be the main day Christmas gift shopping takes place, has become synonymous with huge, angry crowds and people fighting over items. 

In 2008, an employee at Walmart was trampled to death by a mob of customers entering the store in New York.

Was this person’s death really worth a TV that’s $50 cheaper?

There’s also good ol’ Saint Nick, the father of Christmas himself, Santa Claus.

Christmas itself is meant to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, a man who was really most likely born sometime in April.

The holiday was probably moved to December in Roman times to replace an already existing Pagan holiday.

Santa himself is based on Saint Nicholas, a Christian saint from modern day Turkey.

If you’re wondering if Saint Nicholas was always depicted as a jolly old man wearing all red, he wasn’t. You can thank Coca-Cola for what is the modern day depiction of Santa.

Santa’s now-iconic look was popularized by what he looked like in advertisements for Coca-Cola in the 1930s.

Can you imagine that, your whole perception of him is almost entirely due to a soda company

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that really a lot of our perception of holidays today has been shaped by corporations, with even negative effects on the environment being a result.