Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo

Capitalism Won’t Let Me Enjoy One Holiday at a Time

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCD chapter.

I’m serious, it really won’t.

When I went to Target at the beginning of October, I saw Thanksgiving-themed mugs and oven mitts. I tried to excuse the premature sales of these products because, hey, Thanksgiving has a cute fall color scheme, and I really wanted it to feel like autumn. Unfortunately, Davis was still experiencing 90+ degree weather at that time, so I walked past the cute Thanksgiving displays and bought my paper towels.

The Thanksgiving display annoyed me deeply. Halloween hasn’t even happened yet, and they’re already trying to sell me supplies for the holiday after that?

But it never stops. Even though we have yet to celebrate Halloween, I see stores setting up for Christmas. Listen, if you still have bulk Halloween candy for sale, you absolutely should not have Christmas displays running rampant in the aisles. Yesterday, I heard an advertisement on the radio for an all-Christmas-music radio station. IT’S STILL OCTOBER.

These commercially fueled manipulations trying to get me to buy, buy, buy more holiday tchotchkes months before the date on the calendar is getting to ridiculous proportions. It’s gotten completely out of hand how early stores are pushing holiday products. I know it’s all about the profit, but please, just let me enjoy one holiday at a time. 

Stores that sell holiday products prematurely don’t even get me excited about the upcoming events. It makes me pessimistic about the inner workings of capitalism. It makes me frustrated that I can’t just enjoy my transition from autumn to winter and take life one holiday at a time. Capitalism is ruining my holiday experience by trying to get me to buy things I don’t need for holidays that are barely on my radar. For the record, I am staunchly against the playing of Christmas music before Thanksgiving, let alone in October.

A few of my friends have confided in me that they’ve already started listening to Christmas music.

And to that, I want to say:

Only YOU can prevent premature holiday shopping.

Mariana graduated from University of California, Davis in 2018 with bachelor's degrees in English and linguistics. She currently works as an editor for a biotechnology company in Seattle, WA.
This is the UCD Contributor page from University of California, Davis!