According to Forbes, the total expected holiday sales this year are expected to be over a trillion dollars, including Halloween, Christmas, etc. That much money could buy you about nine thousand falcon heavy rockets, and with the remaining money, you could bring every person at least to the poverty line. Sure, holidays are important and brings fun, but if people could stop spending so much money on holidays, the money saved could be used to help people actually in need of help, and not go in buying sweets, and other decorations.
There also is the issue of trash. All those things definitely generate trash, and it isn't just a few tons. About 600 million tons of trash is generated over the holidays. The things in the trash include over 30 million Christmas trees that are trashed every year, 2.6 billion Christmas cards, etc. By trying to recycle the trash, and limiting the things that people buy, most of the trash could be gone.
By buying a few fewer holiday gifts, using less wrapping paper, we could save tons of money, and stop a lot of trash from polluting earth. However, holidays are still an important part of our culture, and banning holidays isn't exactly possible. Therefore, I think that holidays are right now, not exactly worth it, as fun cannot be compared with a trillion dollars and 600 million tons of waste, but if people can limit the waste produced and buy fewer products during the holiday seasons, holidays will be worth it.
All good points! Thanks for posting - how is life down in Jeju?