I Hate This Time Of The Year!

I hate this time of year. It is not the snow, or the cold weather. It’s not the shorter days, or the fact I end up wearing layers and layers of clothing.

What I hate about this time of the year is the extended commercialization of the Christmas season.

It wasn’t that long ago when no one mentioned Thanksgiving until Halloween ended. The weeks going into Halloween were about costumes and candy. Then the day after, all the advertisements started showing the family gathered around a huge table with a turkey. It was the time when people traveled through the woods and snow to get to someone’s house.

Then all of the Christmas ads exploded across television, radio, and the print media, the day after Thanksgiving along with all the Black Friday deals. No one mentioned Christmas until after Thanksgiving. It just wasn’t done but this year I noticed something very different.

For the past 20 years, I’ve lived in small Alaskan villages with no television. This means I didn’t see any ads. I didn’t watch commercials and I never set foot inside a store like Target or Wal-mart. This is the first year, I’ve been in a city to experience things.

Oh my. I saw my first imitation Christmas trees in Wal-mart a few days before Halloween. This means I saw my first Christmas display about 2 full months before the holiday and at least one month before Thanksgiving. My first reaction was one of shock. Who moved the Christmas shopping season to October.

The other day, I had to go to Fred Meyers for something and just inside the entrance, near Starbucks, next to one of the registers was a set of mannequins wearing ugly sweaters and they had a pair of ugly sweater pants on the woman that matched his ugly sweater. It almost made me lose my desire to shop there

In addition, I’ve been receiving notices for early Black Friday deals and pre-Black Friday sales. It isn’t even Thanksgiving and I’m already being inundated by these. If that isn’t enough, all the ads I’m seeing on my streaming shows are focused on Christmas.

I’m not opposed to companies advertising for Christmas but do they have to start so early in the year, stretching it out so long that Christmas loses its identity. In theory, Christmas is to celebrate the joy of family. Yes, there is the exchanging of gifts, the image of happiness but must we be subjected to it for over two long months?

It is becoming so commercialized that Halloween and Thanksgiving are being pushed to the sides to make room for Christmas. It is making me think that in a few years both Halloween and Thanksgiving will disappear as we begin to worship Christmas shopping by putting it on a pedestal. Will we one day decide that Christmas be advertised all year with pre-pre-pre- Black Friday sales? I hope not.

This is why I really, really hate this time of year. It has become too commercialized. Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear. Have a great day.