Everyone loves Christmas, and I mean everyone (the belief in Jesus is not akin to the belief in Santa). Many traditions are shared and cherished by society during the holiday season; from the nostalgic array of songs that have been ingrained into our heads and hearts since our very first Christmas, to baking sugar cookies with loved ones and drinking hot cocoa by the fire, to the cheesy holiday Hallmark movies that we hate to admit we can’t get enough of. It is the combination of these pastimes and several others that join to elicit what we refer to as, Christmas cheer – a phenomena deeply felt throughout the world that fills our otherwise bitter and lonely hearts, with an unexplainable sense of joy and abundance that only comes once a year.
The problem with this periodic epidemic of happiness is that people seek to extend the pleasant, merry feeling as much as they can in order to eschew the lackluster that lies on the other side of December. In doing so, they begin their Christmas traditions well before they are due, blasting Mistletoe by Justin Bieber as early as mid October. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, but I do not want to see candy canes lined up next to the bags of Halloween candy at Walgreens. These attempts at establishing a premature Christmas are taking away from the magic and bliss that lies within other holidays. Have we forgotten about Thanksgiving altogether? It is an entire holiday dedicated to family and appreciating the things that matter most in our lives, and yet we rush to worship an old, bearded man who breaks into the home’s of children in the middle of the night.
While some may think that a prolonged period of Christmas is a solution to their problems in life, it is merely just a bandaid. Christmas is a sacred time. The longer we celebrate, the more tired we will grow of our favorite traditions that make it so special. The power that Christmas holds will diminish, and it will lose its ability to instill happiness within us. Christmas cheer will be lost altogether, and we will exist in a world of sameness and despair. Okay maybe that was a bit dramatic, but seriously. I think we should stick to the original holiday time frames and start finding happiness within ourselves, rather than relying on a social construct to provide us with the excitement we deserve to feel every day of the year. With that said, let’s all agree to save the Christmas shenanigans for after Thanksgiving so we can fully relish in the spirit of the season during its most prime days.
BRB, The Grinch is about to start on Freeform’s 25 days of Christmas… can’t miss it. ~