By Jessica Clayton
Flashback: Halloween is over and all the candy is gone, along with the holiday. What do you see on the shelves to replace the previous spooky items? Christmas stuff. Wait, isn’t it only November? What happened to Thanksgiving? And why are my ears being tortured with the same music that is stuck on repeat every year?
Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday of the year. But who in their right mind wants to hear the music, see the traditional green and red decorations stocked on shelves and decorations that are crammed in every possible corner of the world on Nov. 1? It’s enough to send a completely sane person to an asylum. By the time Christmas is over I’m just thinking to myself, “Kill me now.” It’s like Santa came with his reindeer, vomited the North Pole and dropped his huge bundle of headaches, aggravation and annoyance all over America two months before the Christmas holiday.
I think there should be an international rule: no Christmas until Thanksgiving is over. There are so many great things about the holiday, but those few people who kick it into overdrive, kill it. To me it screams, “HEY, look at me and my hoard of decorations piled as high as possible on every inch of my house, and let me blast those classic songs we’ve heard for years on repeat and I don’t care if you don’t like it, you’re just a Grinch.”
Maybe I am a Grinch, but only until November is over. Then, I get excited. Yes! Presents, family, break, trees, decorations, lights, the whole package, but only in December will these thoughts even begin to enter my brain.
It’s not like you can escape it either. It’s plastered all over town, in windows, at your neighbor’s house, on radio stations and all over your favorite TV stations. And then the fanatics wonder why people are so bitter during the holidays. Hello, it’s because of all the over zealous people who drown them in the holiday spirit for months in advance.
Everybody just needs to calm down, there is a time and place for everything. If you want to celebrate Christmas two months in advance, that’s great. Do it in your own house behind closed doors where I can’t see or hear the obnoxious, excessive aspects of the holiday when it isn’t even “around the corner,” but more like to the left, then right, and 10 miles ahead after the blinking caution signs.
Now, in the month of December, is the appropriate time to start “getting into the holiday spirit.” This way, you don’t anger everyone you encounter and you can have your jolly, everything-is-great time of the year. Everyone wins.
Oh, and one last thing: When the holidays are over, please take down your decorations. You just look tacky.