Nothing gets my gears grinding like seeing Christmas decorations on the shelves before Halloween and Thanksgiving have passed. Christmas is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like it steals the spotlight from two other fantastic holidays.
I love Halloween! It’s seriously looked over as a holiday. You get to dress up as someone other than yourself for an entire day. Maybe that sounds childish, but maybe that’s the point of Halloween — to take you back to your childhood. You get to have the silly fun most people frown upon other days in the adult world. Some of my best memories come from going to the store, deciding my costume of the year and then collecting a ton of candy I ate way past its recommended expiration date. That can’t just be me.
And Halloween is so much better in college, especially in Nevada. Thank you, Abraham Lincoln, for making Nevada a state on the same weekend as Halloween so that we get an entire extra day to dress up and celebrate than the rest of the country. Three nights of full-out Halloween fun. There are guaranteed multiple parties on every night of the weekend, and your worst nightmare is that the best parties fall on the same night. Plus, that’s three costumes you get to wear in one year, making Halloween three times better than it already is.
What is not to love about Halloween? Why would we want to skip this weekend of crazy fun to fast-track to Christmas? We need to appreciate and celebrate Halloween with the same energy and delight we has as children.
I can’t pinpoint when I started to hate Christmas music, but I’m pretty sure it started to burn my ears when I realized most radio stations and department stores started getting everyone in the Christmas spirit in July. Not really, but you get my point. I have never received as much backlash as when I started voicing my opinion. My family, friends and random people I don’t even know started referring to me as the Grinch, un-American, etc. Whatever, I stand by my opinion. So I lied — nothing gets my gears grinding like hearing Christmas music before Thanksgiving. Can you really blame me? It’s the same 10 songs over and over for months! I get tired of really great albums in a matter of weeks.
Moving on. In November, we celebrate Thanksgiving. I understand the argument as to why we would kind of look over this holiday and move on to Christmas. It’s racist, and the Pilgrims aren’t as nice as we were told while we were making hand turkeys. I get it.
However, who doesn’t love to sit down with a bunch of people you’re obligated to love and stuff your face with helpings of yummy food? I savor the day I get to inhale my uncle’s green bean casserole and my grandma’s Thanksgiving turkey and not be judged when I look pregnant after getting up from the table.
And if you have more than one side of the family to celebrate with like I do, you get to eat even more Thanksgiving food on the day after. Really, there’s nothing like Thanksgiving leftovers. I like food, sue me.
I really do love my family. Thanksgiving is the time I get to go home and see my parents and my little sister for the first time in months after struggling to feed myself on a single box of mac and cheese during midterms. It’s not a crime to miss your family, your home and most importantly, your dog. If anything, Thanksgiving should be a time to celebrate family and fortune. We all have something to be grateful for.
Plus, the next day is Black Friday, a fantastic day for brave discount enthusiasts to go nuts. Even the spectacle of these activities is enough to make you appreciate the fall holidays.
Again, I love Christmas, but I’m just stating the facts. Halloween and Thanksgiving are the bomb. It’s not a coincidence these holidays are spread almost evenly a month apart. You have that time to prepare and celebrate the designated holiday of the month. I suggest we use this time to properly give each holiday the effort it deserves. Who’s with me?
Madeline Purdue studies Journalism. She can be reached at alexandraschultz@unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.