By Jess Kung Multimedia Manager
Was this Halloween really long for anyone? My roommates, a couple, made two sets of costumes for Halloween and had attended three Halloween events before Friday, Oct. 27. Four entire costumes, and before Halloween had happened they were done.
Everybody needs something to keep them going when the season gets busier in late Autumn, but is continuous celebration really the solution? Why do coffee shops have to roll out winter holiday cups the day after Halloween? Why do we have a month of Halloween and two months of non-religious Christmas?
I really don’t want to poo-poo the holiday spirit. It’s fine to start prepping for the various winter celebrations early, decorate, and change your Twitter name to a snow or Santa based pun. I still don’t like it, and I want to understand why instead of just shitting all over it like people have been for decades.
Cozying up and buckling down for winter doesn’t make much sense to someone who has never had a snow day.
There’s some value to decorating early, I guess. You can get as much as you can for all the money and labor that goes into putting lights up. But don’t you get sick of it? Doesn’t it get normal, and doesn’t the magic wear off?
Maybe I’m too California. Cozying up and buckling down for winter doesn’t make much sense to someone who has never had a snow day. The season just doesn’t seem that exceptional. Not enough changes for it to feel like the holiday season, especially if Christmas trees go up before the leaves outside have fallen.
I also really love Thanksgiving, and think it deserves better. It comes at a welcome time in the school year, and my family knows how to put together a good feast. Our extended family comes together more completely for Turkey Day than any other holiday. But it’s a holiday that mostly changes grocery store shelves, and so it must be pushed aside for more marketable days.
It can’t be denied that part of what extends Halloween and Christmas is consumerism. Even Thanksgiving is increasingly eclipsed by Black Friday, which will probably go down anthropologically as the saddest holiday. I don’t really like the feeling of my holiday spirit being taken advantage of, but like, whatever, that’s life.
I just want holidays to have an impact. The reasons they might not anymore probably have to do as much with me as anyone else. But until then, I’ll blame my inability to feel on the climate and capitalism. At least humanity’s been able to change one of those things.
