Holidays

About a week or so before Halloween, I found myself at the cosmetics section of the Sunnyvale Macy’s (don’t ask) and noticed that they had holiday-esque decorations up. It was festive, but generic enough that I wasn’t positive that they were special Christmas decorations as opposed to just being the normal setup. So I asked, and they confirmed that they had just put them up a few days prior.

I dunno, that made me angry. It wasn’t even Halloween yet and they have Christmas decorations up? Rage. The reason it makes me angry is I just feel like it’s crass marketing. Dong is of the mind that the holiday season is so festive, why not extend it? And I jive with that. But that’s not the stores’ motivation. At least, not their primary one. They just want to extend the period in which people psychologically are compelled to buy stuff. And I dunno, that just makes me angry.

I think in general, I get bothered when people go through holidays without taking the time to think about the meaning of the holiday. And I mean all holidays. Christmas, of course, is particularly galling given the rampant commercialization of it. It seems like tons of people, even Christians, can spend the majority of the Christmas season worrying about getting gifts, or just thinking about general holiday cheer, and not Jesus. But Thanksgiving is the same. Maybe I’m alone on this, but the point of Thanksgiving is to be thankful. So we should not worry so much about turkey and food and whatever and make sure we have a dedicated, deliberate time where we think about what we’re thankful for, right? Are you with me? But who does that. The thankful part is cursory or ignored, and it’s mostly about other things, which aren’t necessarily bad, just missing the point somewhat, I think.

But yeah, I have issues, so what do I know. I do think something my sister’s pastor does is pretty cool. They don’t exchange gifts on Christmas, because Christmas is about Jesus. What they do is exchange gifts on Thanksgiving, because that’s a time when we give thanks and appreciate each other. I dig that a lot, since it matches appropriate actions with the holiday. Not that I’m going to do it.