Deck the halls
Christmas is coming even earlier this year
Melissa Hiebert Staff
’Tis the season to deck the trees, trim the halls, and all of those other Christmasy phrases! Crack out those boxes full of decorations that have been collecting dust since the middle of last January, when someone finally decided that if they don’t take them down soon, the neighbours will begin to wonder. Start buying pants three sizes too big so that you will have enough room to gorge yourself on holiday baking and endless Christmas feasts. Most of all, make sure to clean your chimneys and leave out plenty of cookies and milk (and a little something for the reindeer, too).
Wait a minute, what do you mean it’s only October? Are you trying to tell me that, with all of the Christmas specialty stores already setting up in the mall and department store displays creeping their way up to the front, it isn’t Christmas yet? And here I was all excited that I had gotten caught in a time warp, missed all of my finals and skipped ahead to a relaxing winter break. No Christmas miracles like that here, though — only vain attempts at creating premature shopping frenzies for the biggest consumer holiday of the year.
Christmas for corporations is like . . . um, Christmas. This is the time of the year when they cash in, big time. To push the ever-growing seasonal profit margins higher and higher every year, the displays and decorations seem to show up earlier and earlier. Perhaps one day we’ll just forget about Halloween altogether and put up our coloured lights in the middle of September. It’s a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy to get rid of Halloween, forever! Christmas is just jealous of how cool and fun Halloween is, letting people dress up at any age without looking crazy, not to mention the piles of delicious, delicious candy. Mmmm . . . candy!
Yep, Christmas is definitely the grinch that stole Halloween. It doesn’t matter much, though, because the Halloween costumes have been out since school started. So it seems that Halloween was just the grinch that stole Thanksgiving. Actually, it seems that we are so caught up in getting ready for the next major holiday that we don’t even seem to take the time to celebrate the one that is here right now. The year now consists of only four days: Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s day and Easter, maybe with a few other minor ones thrown in just to tide over the people at Hallmark until their next big score.
Consumerism is the grinch that stole all major holidays. But unlike the movie that taught us that we can enjoy Christmas sans material goods, this grinch is only teaching us that there are no more holidays, only ‘merchandise theme days.’
How can we liberate our favorite holidays from the greedy grips of these multinationals? The answer is elementary, my dear Watson, STOP BUYING!
I mean, who really needs 10 different seasonal candy dishes anyway? Perhaps you think that Christmas isn’t Christmas without all of the lights and decorations, but, then again, little turkey-shaped lights are not at all necessary for a “traditional” Thanksgiving.
So, this Halloween, I’m going to worry about getting a costume, candy to hand out (since my mom insists that I am too old to go trick or treating), and that’s about it. Maybe a pumpkin to carve. But none of these pre-designed pumpkin kits that you just have to trace out. No specialty candy dishes or chip and dip party trays, either. Yes sir, Halloween is a wonderful time of year, and I’m glad that I indeed did not get caught in a time warp and miss it.
I just feel sorry for the poor employees that will miss it because they have to spend All Hallow’s Eve setting up Christmas displays so that they’ll be up in time for the next morning.
