It's not Christmas yet: Stay in your lane!

Yes, I may as well admit it right now, I am one of those. I don’t do Christmas before Thanksgiving! As a result, November 1 is my worst nightmare. It seems as if every store, restaurant, radio station or whatever has a giant switch that they flip on the stroke of midnight on October 31, changes everything overnight into a winter wonderland. You gotta hand it to them, it is quite a feat to swap everything that quickly. However, there are still some of us, namely me, who are still trying to drink their apple cider all while being bombarded with Deck the Halls, giant snowmen and bright twinkling lights everywhere they look. 

Don’t get me wrong, all these things are great! I love them as much as the next person. As soon as the Thanksgiving dinner is over, I am all over the holiday. But Christmas needs to learn to stay in its lane. It has been pushing the boundaries for a while now, and, in my opinion, it is getting too cocky. Christmas has the whole month of December. It doesn’t need to steal anything from Thanksgiving. 

Now, I realize that my strong feelings on this subject probably comes from the fact that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I am actually a little obsessed with it. I love Christmas, but Thanksgiving is the holiday I really get excited about. The food, family, friends, football, all of it! It’s such a great holiday, yet it gets lost in all the hurriedness to get up the lights, blow-up the red-nosed reindeers and put out the plastic snowmen. 

Would Thanksgiving ever steal anything from Christmas, or any other holiday for that matter? No! All Thanksgiving wants is to bring people together over tons of food and let them eat until they can’t move and then give them the excuse to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day. It humbly kicks off the holiday season and then steps back and lets Christmas have center stage. But is Christmas content with that? Obviously not. 

Anyway, I digress. The holiday season is an exciting time and I am looking forward to all that it brings, and I plan to celebrate each one accordingly in their proper order. 

By Hannah Olin