Christmas is the most widely celebrated holiday in the world. While traditionally Christian in origin, it is celebrated by people of all different religions today. Some of the most common ways that the holiday season is welcomed include people decorating their houses with lights, the playing of festive and holiday-themed music, and commercials advertising holiday deals being aired. All of these traditions have become deeply ingrained in our culture, and they are all wonderful ways to celebrate.

Except, of course, when they happen months before the actual holiday.

Everyone’s seen it; as soon as Halloween ends, stores put out all of their Christmas decorations and start airing commercial after commercial advertising their holiday deals. This can be infuriating, as Christmas is still 2 months away at this point. They go so far as to completely ignore the fact that Thanksgiving, another major holiday, even exists.

Costco, a popular large warehouse store, is one of the worst offenders on this front. They sometimes have Christmas trees available for purchase as soon as late August, which is simply absurd.

A freshman at Oakdale High School, Keenan Vance, provided his opinion on when stores should begin selling these decorations, stating, “November first… as soon as Halloween is over.”

Generally, people are split into two groups on this issue: those who think that the holidays should begin right after Halloween, and those who think that they should start right after Thanksgiving.

Junior Shiv Anderson, who agrees with Vance, offered more of an explanation: “Honestly, I wanna say the start of November, because you do have to start decorating kind of early, and if you start selling the decorations too late then everyone’s going to be going crazy and in a rush, and there won’t be enough.”

While this line of thinking does make sense, Thanksgiving is a very popular holiday in it’s own right. Companies could certainly find a way to make money off of it before transitioning fully into the Christmas season, and give it more room to breathe.

The worst part about this is the fact that it isn’t just one or two stores that do this, it’s all of them. Kevin Trigger, a computer science teacher here at Oakdale, commented on this. When asked about if he had seen decorations for sale anywhere recently, he simply answered, “Everywhere.”

The most famous tradition on Christmas is the giving of gifts. Because of the massive craze of consumerism that envelops the country as the holidays approach, commercials advertising deals on gift items usually begin to air even before Halloween is over. That makes it nearly 2 months till Christmas, which is just an insane time gap.

These commercials should really begin to be aired about halfway through November. They should be early enough to make people aware of Black Friday deals, which is when many people do their Christmas shopping, but not so early that they shift the focus too much from Thanksgiving.

In reality, all of these things don’t matter. What really is important is celebrating in your own way. Do what makes you happy, and celebrate how you think is appropriate. With that being said, still be considerate of what others want. And if you are one of those early celebrators, please, for all our sakes, wear some headphones next time you decide to listen to Jingle Bells on the bus.