One would think that Christmas was my favorite holiday... It is after all most people's favorite holiday--and it is such a beautiful holiday, branches intertwined with sparkling lights, dripping with extravagant ornaments. Not to mention, I love Christmas music. I must have 20 versions of every Christmas song; I have the instrumental, traditional, R&B, pop, rap, reggae, and country versions. I'm also not ashamed to blast them during random times of the year.
A week ago, I walked in to a craft store only to be overwhelmed by Christmas decor. Surprisingly, my first thought was, "I hate Christmas." Christmas stuff became the focal point of most stores, not a week ago, but on November 1, less than 24 hours after Halloween. Why? It's as though the entire last quarter of the year is dedicated to one holiday. Can I finish enjoying Halloween (and get the day after Halloween candy special!), please? Can I have time to reflect and be thankful? Can we spend November reminding people to be thankful for what they have and encourage them to give back to their community before skipping into Santa hats and mistletoe? Seriously, Hanukkah started during Thanksgiving (an occurrence that won't happen again for like 70,000 years), and I didn't see the first sign of it. In fact, if I didn't know any Jewish people, I probably would forget about it all together.
What is it with this obsession of starting Christmas so soon? For me, it takes away the enjoyment of the holiday. It's always been tradition in my family to pull out the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving, decide what we want to do, and get them up by Dec 1. It was interesting. Anticipating this day, waiting for everyone else to put up their decorations, this made the season exciting. Now, I'm already sick of seeing green and red, lights and garland. It feels like Christmas has already passed, yet we're just putting up the decorations. I should be thrilled that I can finally blast my Christmas CD without getting weird looks, but I'm contemplating making a mix CD of my non-Christmas music for the drive back instead.
And I wonder, is it just me?
