It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but in October? To put it bluntly, Christmas decorations should not be gracing the shelves of department stores at this point in the year. I have my many reasons why, and all of them are personal. I don’t like seeing jolly Ol’ Saint Nick looming down every aisle I turn when I just start getting excited for Halloween weekend. Nothing dampens my spirits like seeing Elf on the Shelf boxes when I just start thinking about oven roasted turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner. I might be starting a war between worlds here but just hear me out.
I hate Christmas, there I said it. I don’t know what specifically that says about me as a person but I hardly mind. My deep-rooted despise of this holiday has been ongoing for years. I don’t know what event catalyzed this reaction, but my hatred is seated on a primal level almost. I never really liked the holiday in the first place, and the loss of loved ones around Christmas time has just made me retreat into my Ebenezer Scrooge cage further. I won’t even hum the melody to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” Therefore, the sooner Christmas decorations appear in local grocery stores, the more I miss previous seasons. I also love fall and just think that the preemptive merchandise ruins my favorite season before it even ends. Christmas is meant for deep winter, and deep winter alone.
Another one of my favorite personal reasons is that the year I was born, Thanksgiving was the day of my birthday. Therefore I always joke with my family that they should be thankful for my presence, and every year they are, I make sure of that. So, I hate seeing one of the holidays that is most sentimental to me trampled by elves and sugar plum fairies. There is no reason that one should go shopping on Black Friday with Christmas music setting a painfully cheerful ambiance. Let us have our cranberry sauce and NFL watch parties, and enjoy it okay? Even though I don’t agree with the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving historically, I still think it’s a holiday that should be respected nonetheless simply because it’s about being thankful for family and the things you’ve been blessed with in life.
Now I have two remaining reasons I hate Christmas: I’ve been traumatized by mall Santas since I was a child, and Christmas practically leaves its own milk and cookies out for American Capitalism. To address the first reason, all I have to say is children sitting on a stranger’s lap, while said stranger is dressed as a bearded man from folklore, is unsettling. I also don’t have a single picture of myself with a “Santa” where I’m not throwing an absolute fit and crying on a random man’s lap. To elaborate further on the capitalism issue, big companies absolutely boom during holiday season and I’m a very big supporter of small, local businesses, so I hate to see monetary efforts go to mass production and unethical labor. What you decide to gift people is your business, but please think about how you could help out small businesses during this time of the year, and you can always make their holiday season better.
I’ll take the title of being a Grinch, and rightfully so. I don’t like Christmas, and probably won’t make that big of a deal out of the holiday when it comes to my own family someday. Keep the gingerbread cookies away from me, I’ll politely say no when it comes to eggnog, and will not be caught dead under the mistletoe. Let me reclaim Halloween and Thanksgiving and I’ll be content I promise. However, I don’t think this early release of Christmas merchandise will end soon, but a girl can dream, right?