Rushing into Christmas, neglecting Thanksgiving

By Katherine Brachelli
November 18, 2005

As I watch my neighbor struggle to put a string of Christmas lights around his roof and yell for me to help give him a hand, I can’t help but to think to myself that this man is nuts. I feel like Halloween has just ended and this guy is decorating for Christmas. What about Thanksgiving?

Every year, I feel like we are rushed into Christmas even quicker. Halloween just disappeared and Christmas is rounding the corner in just a blink of an eye. Yesterday I was staring at my little sister in her Halloween witch costume. Today, I am staring at the plastic Santa Claus on my neighbor’s roof.

Nonetheless, I can’t help but to let myself be dragged into the rush of the quickly approaching Christmas holiday. I find myself up on my neighbor’s roof helping him with that string of lights he can’t seem to get right. To try and escape all the people who are energetically preparing for the Christmas holiday, I hop into my car with my mom in hope of getting all the items we need for Thanksgiving dinner.

I turn on the radio in my car only to find that Christmas music is playing. Thanksgiving has not even passed and they have Christmas music all day on some radio stations. I leave the Christmas music on as I happily hum to Harry Connick Jr.’s, “When My Heart Finds Christmas.” My trip that was supposed to be to the grocery store somehow ended up at the nearby mall.

The mall is all decked out for the Christmas holiday. Christmas lights are sparkling from end to end in the mall. Everywhere I turn, I see Christmas trees with ornaments gleaming in the window displays of every store. I see a group of men working tirelessly in the far end of the mall creating the elaborate Santa display where children will meet with Santa the following weekend to get their picture with him. Soon enough, I am caught up in a little store dedicated to selling Christmas items to decorate the house. I end up purchasing a few items that will look nice around the house at Christmas time and leave the mall.

As much as I complain about the quick transition from Halloween right to Christmas, I have also become a victim in participating in the rush to get ready for Christmas. As much as we all want to avoid being thrown into the Christmas holiday so quickly, I feel like we are all somehow persuaded to join the trend. Whether it be something as little as listening to that favorite Christmas song of yours in early November, putting those Christmas decorations up early or hitting up the malls with certain intentions of purchasing items and instead being enticed to buy that little Christmas item on sale, in one way or another it somehow catches up to us.

Although I know I get caught up in the Christmas holiday like many others even before Thanksgiving arrives, Thanksgiving is a holiday that I think many individuals enjoy. Sometimes we all get so caught up in the rushed Christmas spirit that we all forget about Thanksgiving until it is only a few days away.

The idea of having family and friends gather together to have a big turkey dinner, or to go into Philadelphia and freeze outside to witness the parade in Center City and yell at the balloon crew to spin their balloon or to simply watch the big football game on TV is a day that many of us should celebrate and enjoy without being thrown into the rush to get ready for Christmas. It’s frustrating to think that we all get so rushed into Christmas that Thanksgiving is almost forgotten and not as much time is put into preparing for Thanksgiving.

Posted to the web by Tim Hague

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Katherine Brachelli

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