As a Christian country, Christmas Day happens to be one of the most celebrated holidays in the calendar of the Dominican Republic. Like much of the population of the world, people pile up in their own homes to gather, have dinner, exchange gifts, and thank whoever they want to take for the blessings that they have had in the past year.
In recent decades, the holiday has become more and more commercialized, eventually becoming the world's most commercialized holiday. Businesses are having a field day during this season because people generally spend a lot more money these days.
Of course the intense commercialization of Christmas is not without bad effects, especially in busy Santo Domingo, whose roads have been gridlocked with motorists carrying loads of Christmas bonus payments in hand, ready to spend their money on gifts and food for the Christmas dinner.
According to DomincanToday.com, in the central intersections of 27 de Febrero Avenue with Maximo Gomez, Lincoln and Churchill, the motorists waited for more than an hour just to have their respective lines moving and escaping the gridlock. This is despite the fact that more than a hundred traffic enforcers had already been deployed by the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
One would think that the world is coming on to greater poverty these days, but the scene in those central avenues just prove one thing: people are still willing to shelve out a lot of money. That's just how effective Christmas is as a marketing tool.You know a tool is effective if it can convince people to part with their hard-earned money--and to think that a lot of these people save money all year-long just for this holiday. That's Christmas in the Dominican Republic for you.
In the meantime, we will just have to stand the bad congestion and traffic jam. It's the same year after year anyway. The traffic gridlocks typically die down after New Year's Day, when people go back to their regular business. For now, motorists will have to be extra-patient.
