This is something that I've been noticing more and more in the past few years. In the autumn months, it has become increasingly popular to jump straight to preparing for and anticipating Christmas right after Halloween has passed. We throw our cobwebs, skeletons, and talking witches back into the closet and pull out the tinsel, pine wreaths, and Christmas trees. It's even gotten to the point where our meme culture has become saturated with this mentality.
See what I mean?
It just keeps going, honestly.
I'm not done yet.
There, now I'm done. And that last one really bugs me the most, for some reason. Maybe it's because of the fact that we want to immediately jump from one holiday where we're automatically given a bunch of stuff to another holiday where we're automatically given a bunch of stuff.
Now, I know it's also because Halloween and Christmas are just more commercialized, but that's because it's so dang easy to commercialize Halloween and Christmas. As much as we like to think of Christmas as just being the season of giving, the commercial aspect still lives. In our current culture, it's just as much a season of getting. Thanksgiving isn't easy to commercialize, so it isn't played up in stores. I mean, how do you profit off a holiday that is literally about gathering together with family and friends to share food and be grateful for what you already have? It's also why Black Friday and "After Thanksgiving" sales are being pushed so much in recent years.
But honestly, this is a problem we need to talk about. Thanksgiving is still a national holiday the last time I checked. We still get vacation time for it. We still make plans for it with friends and family. That means it still has meaning and significance to us. So Thanksgiving deserves more recognition and appreciation than it has in recent years.
We can't just drop the tradition of gathering together to express selfless gratitude for what we have that has been celebrated since before we were even an independent nation. Especially after the past few months, celebrating thankfulness and family is more important than ever. Just a friendly little reminder as we move deeper into the holiday season. Take care, everyone.