Imagine it’s Oct 31 around 11:50 p.m. You’re up, for whatever reason, and look at the clock. It’s almost November 1st. You can feel it coming like winter in Game of Thrones; Christmas. As the Grinch said while he stood atop his mountain perch, “Christmas. It’s practically here.” With the oncoming onslaught of holiday cheer, there are those who love it, those who hate it, and those who don’t care either way. Personally, I hate it. However, all options on how to act are valid. As to why this is even an occurrence? Short answer? Commercialism.
Christmas creep is a merchandising phenomenon in which merchants and retailers introduce Christmas-themed merchandise or decorations before the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, which in the United States is on the day after Thanksgiving. However, those dates have been pushed back further and further as the years go by. Christmas is literally creeping up on other holidays. If I don’t hear “All I Want For Christmas” by Mariah Carey before turkey day, it’ll be a Thanksgiving miracle, because it’s in November. It seems as if seeing the decorations in store is almost seen as an okay for it being a good time to put up Christmas decorations in our own homes. It’s not. It’s really not. I read that there was a study about putting up Christmas decorations earlier made people feel happy. That study sounds like it was bought and paid for by the conglomerate of Target and Walmart. If we could go back in time and check our social media outlets there were memes of Christmas talk as early as mid-October. It’s a bit much.
A simple month reprieve is not too hard to ask. Thanksgiving has a history. One that we aren’t quite (or at least shouldn’t be) proud of. We all know that Thanksgiving is less popular than Christmas. But I don’t think it justifies canceling. In some families, Thanksgiving is seen as a family get together. Tons of family come from distant lands to share in a feast. You can do that with Christmas, but Christmas also involves gifts. Would you rather share food with 20 guests or 20 presents? As college students, nobody has the time or the money for that. Save Thanksgiving. Keep Christmas in December.
Tony Tann
tdtann@vwu.edu
