Picture this: you walk into the mall, ready to do some shopping, and you are automatically assaulted by red and green streamers everywhere. There’s even a giant Christmas tree in the middle of the mall with a nice jolly Santa sitting near it. It seems as though there isn’t a square inch of the mall that isn’t filled with a person or a candy cane.
When you imagine that picture, what time of year comes to mind? Well, the holiday season of course, but what month? There are Christmas decorations, so it must be the Christmas season, right? Wrong.
It seems Christmas decorations get put out earlier and earlier every year. This year, I recall seeing Christmas decorations beginning to show their festive colors in October. October. That is exactly two months before it’s even December, let alone Christmas or Hanukkah.
There are at least two major holidays to celebrate between the beginning of October and the beginning of December; Halloween and Thanksgiving. Halloween is one of the best holidays, in my opinion. It’s beginning to seem like my spooky spirit is being stifled by others’ aggressive and premature Christmas spirit.
All holidays have their traditions, and anyone who celebrates those holidays have an opinion of what their favorite aspect is. My issue comes when those traditions are stifled because other holidays are infringing upon them. Take Thanksgiving for example. Thanksgiving used to just be a day where people got together with their loved ones and ate some food. Now, people are rearranging their family Thanksgivings to ensure they’re able to get a good spot in line for Wal-Mart’s Black Friday door busters.
Why do people do this? Everyone has a different reason for going Black Friday shopping. I get it, it’s fun sometimes. Black Friday and the exorbitant amount of people who attend these “door busters” are there to get a good deal on the newest gadgets. But why do they want these new gadgets? For Christmas and Hanukkah presents, of course. Black Friday is the prime example of the “Christmas season” oozing into other holidays and taking away some of the best parts, like spending time with friends and family.
Also, don’t even get me started on the mall Santas. Kids love meeting Santa, naturally. But it doesn’t always live up to the child’s expectations though, and that never goes well.
Those Santas have always crawled under my skin, even when I was little. A mall Santa is the reason I found out Santa wasn’t real.
Malls bring in Santa Claus because he brings them more money, that’s it. The malls know it will bring them more revenue. Parents love photos of their kids. Even when their children hate the mall Santa, they still insist on their kid having a photo with him. Malls know this and capitalize on it.
I love Christmas just as much as the next person. You can bet your eggnog that I jam my Christmas music loud and proud. However, I do that after Thanksgiving, when the other holidays have had their time to shine.
I enjoy Christmas so much that I want the spirit to stay within the end of November until Christmas; my idea of the traditional Christmas season. The anticipation of Christmas and the Christmas season is half of the fun. If you supply people with all of the Christmas joy in October, it feels like old news once Christmas is finally here.
I encourage everyone to include other holidays, besides Christmas, into their idea of the “holiday season.” There are many out there and they all deserve their respective time to shine.
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