The day was the 24th of December, the first of three days of Christmas in Poland. I was enjoying my time with my girlfriend visiting Christmas markets and spending time with her family. The day of gifts came and in a lot of ways I was shocked. Instead of seeing a tree with gifts piling all around the tree with basically just the focus of gifts only, I was surprised to see only sophisticated amount of gifts that were given, with the majority of the time spent around spending time with family. I can't help but think that the US is much more materialistic than Poland. But it scares me and worries me that Poland may fall on the same footsteps one day. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that purchasing items is a bad thing, nor am I telling a country that recently came out of communist times to watch their spending. But over the years, I believe the US has gotten to a point of overconsuming, and I believe materialism to be one of the worst traits of the US. For me, Christmas as a kid used to be going to church on the 24th of December, and then opening gifts on the 25th. The main priority was basically just gifts and opening and receiving gifts. After this Christmas experience in Poland to which I felt a pleasant and refreshing surprise, I decided to ask my girlfriend if Poland has Black Friday, and what it's like if they do. She told me they do have it, but it's not as popular and crazy like it is in America. And instead for the most part, news companies in Poland will basically just play clips of Americans going crazy over TVs, game consoles, and other electronics or materials. Now with lesser crowds than before, more people are going online to order anything they want, but don't need. With services like Amazon rapidly growing to meet consumer demands, and the average American having over $6,000 of credit card debt. I am back at it again. Racking up those credit card bills. But who can resist Black Friday deals? Am I right? Or hell, even opening a credit card from these exact companies like Amazon or eBay to gain points or receive great deals or money back. Just so we can receive a box of something that's never fulfilling. Another point is obesity. With drive-thrues for anything you can imagine, in a culture obsessed with diabetically causing foods and fake health terms like all natural, organic, sugar free, no sugar added, and even cage free, just to mass the apparent unhealthiness of the food. With an average obesity rate around 40%, the US has a clear problem. And with the history of laziness, lack of movement, lack of knowledge of healthy foods, or the easiness of microwaveable food for adults and even kids, there's definitely a problem. It sometimes amazes me that a country with some of the best athletes in the world can also have the largest and unhealthiest people. With other issues like the growing fat acceptance community promoting being obese as something without any health problems and a new beauty standard, with even mannequins growing larger, just so people feel more okay to give the company money. There is a clear issue. With over 300,000 deaths a year from obesity, this is not something that is healthy to anyone or the society as a whole. There seems to be a stark contrast from the US and Poland when it comes to these things. And it's why I'm wanting to pause that you don't let this happen.