Think about walking into a store, there is Christmas music playing and shelves full of Santa Clauses and miniature Christmas trees. Jingle Bells plays overhead. Red and green lights blink out at you from various places. There is only one weird thing about this – its October. In the words of Senior Tae Park, “It’s kind of like hearing Christmas songs while you’re going trick-or-treating.”
For me Christmas in October is annoying and intrusive. I don’t want to think about Santa Clause while I’m trying to find a Halloween Costume. I like enjoying each holiday for itself.
Sophomore Rachel Roberts said, “Go to Ross they sell Christmas stuff all year round.” Ross’s is a department store, not a craft shop, not a shop specializing in Christmas, a department store. Welcome to commercialism. And I thought the value of Christmas was in friends and family, evidently Ross’s missed the memo. Thanksgiving is getting skipped over because of this. Why would we want to focus on a Holiday that says we should be thankful for what we do have instead of a Holiday that has been wrapped up in commercialism?
Christmas stuff that early projects an obnoxious buy me now message. Why else would they be selling the stuff out of season? Everyone knows Christmas isn’t until December – the end of December at that.
Junior Lucas Waldburger said, “It’s kind of rushed Christmas but everybody does their shopping on Black Friday anyway.” So even though it’s out there in October not everybody buys it. Sophomore Alaina Waluk said she doesn’t buy any earlier. She also said, “I think its fine I have no problem with it.”
For all you readers who don’t have a problem I recommend listening to one Christmas song a day from Halloween until Christmas – then you’ll have a problem. But you have a point it’s not the end of the world. It may even help the economy; if we spend more money then we put money back into the economy and help combat the recession. I just bought a gallon of Candy Cane Ice cream at Trader Joes even though I already had plenty of mint chip at home. I even got a little excited when I bought it. I’m sure Trader Joes’ stock holders are pleased with me.
But if stores make a ton of Christmas merchandise that nobody buys they won’t make a profit and we’ll just have tons of the stuff lying around taking up space. People still have the same amount of Christmas shopping no matter when they do it. All this spare output contributes to our environmental crisis – it takes resources to make Christmas stuff.
Christmas merchandise is nice but it should be kept mostly after Thanksgiving -when we remember what we already do have, not all the things we think we need.
Written by Lorna McGinnis. This article originally appeared in the January 2011 issue.