ART BY HAZUKI TONOMURABy JACOB RAMOS
STAFF WRITER
All I want for Christmas is any other holiday.
Christmas is a commodity, and has been voted America’s favorite holiday for multiple years. Christmas’ booming popularity has done nothing but good for the shopping, entertainment and business industries. Unfortunately, in recent years, Christmas has taken over every socio economic aspect of society, which has prioritized greed over jolliness and has overshadowed holidays such as Thanksgiving with its sheer size. Take, for instance, Disney’s celebration of Christmas, which quite literally starts the day after Halloween, a full 55 days preceding the big Winter day. While this can be seen as economically and spiritually positive, what happens when there is no semblance of any Thanksgiving celebration anywhere?
As expected, a misguided holiday season and corporations such as Disney reaping the benefits of celebrating too early is the outcome nearly every holiday season.
Of course with November 1st passing, it is not uncommon to begin to celebrate Christmas around early November, but most Americans will take more time to focus on Thanksgiving before Christmas. Rising trends in the entertainment industry, specifically Disney, have begun to stump those traditions, and it has been for the worse.
Disney has rolled out new apparel, merchandise and new seasonal food displayed at their theme parks to match their desired Christmas theme. Shopping rates in November typically spike late in the month, but these rates have been spiking earlier in the month each year resulting from early “Black Friday” deals. There is no other explanation for all of this other than corporate greed, knowing that a celebration of Thanksgiving alone would not be able to produce such a massive earning and buying season. Companies such as Zales Jewelers, Best Buy and Walmart have already begun the shopping craze, primarily online.
Doubters may argue that Black Friday is a Thanksgiving reliant holiday and would not exist without Thanksgiving Day preceding it. Unfortunately, as it is called the “unofficial start to the Christmas shopping season,’’ Black Friday is a Christmas centered event, despite its correlation with the end of Thanksgiving. Once again, Thanksgiving is Christmas’ stepping stool, used to set up many festivities that occur around this December holiday, such as Black Friday.
. And with such a high payout waiting for the end of the month, corporations expedite production of consumer goods which in turn creates an earlier Black Friday season every year. Moreover, this furthers the Christmas craze that shoppers and corporations both participate in. As can be expected, buried under the dollars covered in snow, Thanksgiving lies under celebrated and continues its long wait for proper recognition.
Despite this, the question still remains: how do you stop the problem that is the over-commercialism of Christmas?
The answer is extremely obvious: simply stress Thanksgiving in November, the time where this holiday should be rightfully emphasized. This is not to say daring Christmas diehards cannot get a little jolly before Thanksgiving, but should recognize that Thanksgiving is not a mere appetizer to the main course that is Christmas.
To consumers: think of our first Americans, those who gave America its first harvest and just be thankful for the holiday.
To corporations: act respectfully to Thanksgiving. It is understood the holiday season is a business and Christmas is a more marketable season in all likeliness. If enough of you truly focus and market Thanksgiving, it will be a marketing giant, just like Christmas.
And finally, to one of the biggest corporations of all, Disney: Start selling Thanksgiving themed Mickey’s and apparel, for all of the Thanksgiving lovers out there. The season of two holidays in the final month of the year should have never been so lopsided in the first place. Thanksgiving and Christmas each have their own qualities which make them adored by Americans and international citizens alike.
November must be recognized as Thanksgiving’s month, before Christmas takes over completely and furthers Thanksgiving’s exclusion.