Stores Commercialize Holidays Earlier Each Year
Like any child growing up, I loved the holiday season. It meant getting presents, endless trays of cookies and sweets, and of course, no school for two weeks. The whole holiday season is supposed to be a special time of giving, seeing loved ones, and just an overall sense of cheer. The reason why it is special is that it comes once a year, or at least that is what is supposed to happen.
It seems that over the past few years the holiday season has been getting longer, and every year all of the holidays seem to be becoming more and more commercial, especially Christmas. I started seeing ads about upcoming Black Friday sales in October, and it all seems ridiculous.
Yes, stores do need to advertise in order to make money, but they already know that this is the most profitable shopping season of the year, so why can’t they wait at least until I finish my Halloween candy before they start advertising for the door busters and the one day only Christmas sales?
What goes on inside the stores is a whole other story. When I was shopping for Halloween decorations in late September, there were aisles already filled with bright red and green ornaments and silver tinsel. It was barely a month into school.
Why did I need to worry about decorating for a holiday that was two months away? The whole idea that people were already preparing for Christmas seemed inconceivable and absurd. Why did anyone need to buy decorations in September? They are just going to end up being stuffed away somewhere and forgotten.
It is not only the retail stores that are guilty of this. The media does it as well.
Over Thanksgiving weekend there were two Christmas specials on CBS, and there has been a countdown on ABC Family to their 25 days of Christmas, which is a countdown to Christmas.
It seems a bit over the top and redundant, doesn’t it? Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman are some of my favorite holiday classics, but I do not really want to watch them for two months straight. The reason why those movies are so popular and special to people is because they are only on television one month of the year.
The worst part of the whole extended holiday season is the music. I started hearing holiday music in the store a few days after Hurricane Sandy hit. It was November 1. There are only so many times a person can listen to different variations of “Winter Wonderland” or “The Christmas Song” before you want to throw your radio into the garbage. It would not be so bad if it were a slow integration, like it was before, as we enter into the holiday season.
Today, it seems that once we are all done carving the turkey, the Christmas collection hits the radio hardcore, 24 hours a day for a month and a half.
The holiday season is a time to spread joy and be thankful, but it is called the holiday season for a reason. It is only supposed to be a short period of time. It seems like everyone would be a lot less bitter or crazed if we did not have to worry about getting to all the sales that are only for Black Friday, or having the countdown to Christmas as a constant nagging reminder in our heads.
Let the Christmas season be the length it has always been- from the end of November to the first week of January, and let the other holidays such as Halloween and Thanksgiving have their months to be celebrated properly.
IMAGE TAKEN from pastaqueen.com
