Alas, dear readers, Halloween is over. It’s out with the jack-o-lanterns and cobwebs, goodbye to the costumes and copious amounts of candy, and hello to a few weeks of fall weather before Thanksgiving, after which begins the subtle and graceful descent into Christmas. Or in actuality, it’s time to start shoving everything Halloween-related out the door while wearing Santa hats and whistling Jingle Bells.
I, for one, absolutely adore Christmas. As soon as I wake up from my post-turkey coma, I pop my favorite Christmas CD into the car and don’t take it out until well into January. I unironically rock ugly Christmas sweaters all through December, tape up paper snowflakes everywhere, and my family owns a replica of the infamous leg lamp from A Christmas Story.
Yep. Just like that.
Despite all this, I refuse to partake in any of this until after Thanksgiving, a sacred family tradition that started when my father banned my sisters and I from practicing Christmas songs on the piano until after Thanksgiving. Target breaks out the Christmas gear alongside their Halloween seasonal display which comes out in September. September. People, this is not sustainable. You’re only making people resent the holiday even more.
Even worse is that Thanksgiving, a generally well meaning, if historically sugar-coated and whitewashed holiday, is sandwiched between two of the most commercialized holidays: Halloween and Christmas. Obviously it’s not as big of a deal of Christmas or Halloween, but that doesn’t mean it should be completely disregarded as nothing more than a long weekend with some food and football. That said, the complete disregard for Thanksgiving is not even one of my primary problems with the unnecessary and unwarranted extension of Christmas.
My main issue with the creeping up of the Christmas season is that it packs two months (or one sixth of my year) up so tightly that it seems to go by so quickly that by time the actual Christmas season begins, everyone is so burnt out on it and completely over it that it’s not even fun. If you can’t break out in “Deck the Halls” without someone glaring menacingly at or throwing something you, then you simply can’t celebrate the holiday the way it was intended.
My secondary issue with it is that it takes Christmas, a religious holiday that is already overly commercialized, and makes it even more so. I am not particularly religious myself, but I acknowledge the true meaning of the holiday and try to focus on the spirit of the day rather than the materialism. Obviously, I take part in the blatant consumerism as well, but when the holiday season is two months long the consumerism far outweighs the intended meaning and spirit.
So please, it’s only the beginning of November. Chill out. Literally.
Follow the HCND Pinterest account, pin with us, and remember to keep posted with HCND on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!