I feel like I've been doing a lot of talking about Christmas this year, and I swear it's really not me trying to be "salty" about it, as the kids say. (Do they still say that?) I've just been reflecting a lot this year and find that I have a lot of thoughts and feelings.
Just yesterday, I got the bug to wrap the small amount of gifts I currently have on-hand, and for nostalgia's sake, decided to play a few songs from my childhood Christmas gift-wrapping soundtracks, A Rosie Christmas and Another Rosie Christmas.
After about four songs, I was over it. I stuck the gifts under the tree (which for the record was put up by my roommate, before anyone comes at me for lying about my indifference toward Christmas in order to seem spookier) and soon after retired to watch Trick 'r Treat.
There was a part of me, though, that felt sad I couldn't maintain that teeny burst of holiday spirit a little while longer. I started questioning why, and, along with my usual reasons, detailed in this post, one of the big reasons I think I can't even get into the Christmas spirit closer to the actual day of, is because by that time, I'm just plain sick of it.
I started wondering if there would be some part of me that could enjoy Christmas a little more, if it didn't start so early.
I'm not sure if it was like this for everyone, but during my childhood, in the 90s, the Christmas season started when Santa appeared at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was then that you'd start seeing commercials, hearing music, noticing decorations on neighbors' lawns. The time between Halloween and Thanksgiving was a slow descent from the vibrant part of autumn to the sadder, colder, grayer portion. Pumpkins and scarecrows adorned doorsteps, and even more Halloween-specific decorations didn't seem to come down so quickly. Autumn was, more or less, given its full period of time to exist, culminating in Thanksgiving and then the world slowly started to light up again on the road to Christmas. It was so much more gradual then.
The first instance I remember of Christmas starting immediately after Halloween, was the year I had just turned eighteen. For some reason or another, I wound up in a Walmart with my parents in the early afternoon hours of November 1st, and was greeted by a huge Christmas display by the front the door, and music already being played. At the time I thought it was funny; I had never seen anything like that before and found one store's eagerness to skip right to Christmas when they hadn't even fully dismantled their Halloween candy displays desperate and silly, but over the next few years, Christmas immediately after Halloween, and in some cases even before it, simply became the norm. It started with more stores stocking Christmas in early November, then late October, etc. It spread to music and movies being played either before or immediately after Halloween. Eventually it spiraled into people ripping down their Halloween decorations and swapping them out for Christmas on November 1st morning. I've heard that some people even have started traditions of putting up their Christmas tree on Halloween night.
And although it's been this way for at least fifteen years now, I still find it outlandish.
At times I feel bad about that...I mean, does complaining about Christmas coming too early, put me on par with Summer Summers of Summerville, who doesn't want to hear so much as the word "pumpkin" until the official autumnal equinox? Am I hypocrite when it comes to this?
Maybe, on the surface. But hear me out.
Halloween, if you don't enjoy it, is actually a lot easier to avoid than Christmas. Comparing the early onslaught of Halloween, or any other holiday, to that of Christmas, is almost an "apples and oranges" scenario.
If you're a summer person, and you enter a store stocking Halloween in July or August, it's probably a relatively small display at that point, and easy to just walk around. If you're annoyed that Spirit Halloween opened on the most beach-perfect day of the year, you don't have to go inside it. If you're binge-watching a show, every commercial break is not going to be solely about Halloween deals. And you're certainly not going to hear Halloween music blasting in the mall when you just want to shop for new beach towels or bikinis or whatever. Halloween is not an all-consuming thing, if you don't want it to be.
Christmas, however, is. Whether you celebrate it or not, once it starts bleeding its way out into the world, it's literally everywhere. Almost every store has Christmas displays, and for the most part, they're always much bigger and more extravagant than the Halloween ones. And usually, once these displays are up, the music starts. Almost every store plays it. If you're watching TV from late October on, you're definitely getting bombarded with Christmas advertisements. (I watched about six hours of The Exorcist TV series one day last week and I think I saw maybe two non-Christmas-related ads within that time period.) Also, if you're like me and can't stand crowds or hustle or bustle, it becomes almost impossible to go anywhere, once people have nothing but "Gifts! Gifts! Gifts!" on the brain. And the world more or less shuts down for the actual day of, whereas on Halloween, or most other holidays, you can still go about your normal business.
Christmas is truly an all-consuming thing, once it gets started. And when it gets started immediately after the one day of the year you look forward to above all else, or even before that in some cases, it can very quickly start to feel like too much.
Even putting aside the fact that some of us need that time to mourn Halloween, and savor what's left of autumn, I think, even if I still enjoyed it more, Christmas would still feel like it was coming on a little too strong, a little too fast. It's a stressful time to be an adult, even if you do still find it enjoyable, and I truly feel like starting that hype, initiating the hustle and bustle, so soon after one holiday has passed and with another, fairly extravagant holiday in between, can burn you out on it faster. As a retail worker, I'm really too tired of Christmas songs to want to listen to them once I'm home, especially when I've been hearing them since early November. Some decorations have been up for so long, that they no longer feel special in any way, just like some sort of obligation.We've been looking at this stuff...seeing the decor and store displays and commercials, and hearing the music and watching the movie promos, for so long that, at least for me, it comes to a point of just wanting to get it over with, so I feel a little freer to think about something else. While I know no one is tying me down and literally forcing me to think about Christmas, it truly can feel that way sometimes, when something is so in-your-face and everywhere, even within a community dedicated to another holiday entirely.
I truly miss the days where things felt more gradual. Where autumn was allowed its time to slowly fade, and there was time to reflect in between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Maybe it's only because fall and Halloween mean so much to me, but Christmas is the one season that I truly feel is rushed.
At any rate, I hope those that do enjoy this time of year are enjoying it to the fullest. I just wanted to express my views on why "rushing the seasons" at Christmas is an entirely different ballgame.
Stay spooky, my friends.
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