Editorial | It’s November, not Christmas

As Halloween ends and Thanksgiving approaches, Christmas decorations line the aisles of Target, CVS and essentially everywhere else.

It’s early November, people! We are ready for the turkey and stuffing, we are prepared to eat our month-old Halloween candy — we are NOT ready to have a holly, jolly Christmas. Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey do not need to defrost to perform the same few songs that we hear every year. Christmas is at the end of December — why has it suddenly moved to the week after Halloween? 

While we don’t want people to label us as Scrooge or the Grinch, Christmas is moving too quickly away from its designated time period. Black Friday is already a mess — why are we moving a wholesome family holiday into the pits of capitalism a mere few hours later? The Karens put away their turkey leftovers, put on their athleisure and fight people for a flatscreen TV at 5 a.m. What a joyous beginning to the holiday season.

Speaking of capitalism, what are we really celebrating when we bring out the inflatable Santas on Nov. 1? We are all about to lose so much money buying presents that people will use once and forget about. Wasn’t Christmas once about family? And I guess Jesus? Why do we need to get gifts for our cousin’s dog in order to not seem like a jerk? We are giving presents out of obligation now, not love.

Also, November is a beautiful month filled with autumn leaves and cute sweaters. December meanwhile, is dreary, depressing and the holiday celebrations go into full throttle. Let’s take our time going through this wonderful month before the hell of forced togetherness, snow and finals — did we all forget that “Christmas season” is around finals?!

Let’s address the elephant in the room — as much as Republicans disagree, not everyone in America celebrates Christmas. There are plenty of people who eat their Chinese food and go to the movies on Christmas rather than have a tree and ham. Everyone else who doesn’t celebrate Christmas should not have to force us to live around decorations, music and red and green everything for two whole months. Santa Claus doesn’t come to everyone’s house!

Speaking of Christmas music, why does it start playing earlier and earlier? A mere few years ago, Christmas music only played during the last few weeks of December, not early November! As much as we all love to hear “All I Want For Christmas is You,” hearing it 100 times for 60 days is torture. Those jingle bells at the beginning of the song signal the beginning of the apocalypse. I’m sure Mariah Carey loves the royalty checks she gets from every radio station in the entire world — however, we don’t love hearing the song every time we get into the car or the mall.

All in all, we know that the early celebrations just mean people are excited for the holiday season, but let’s wait until the ACTUAL holiday season rolls around. Christmas music, decorations and celebrations have their time and place — and that time and place is Christmas time.