When you walk into a Walmart on October 31st you would expect it to be full of spooky decorations celebrating Halloween and maybe some Thanksgiving decorations here and there. However, Walmart and many other stores probably have more aisles filled with Christmas trees, Nativity scenes, Santa decorations, and fun ornaments for the tree around this time. This debate over when it’s socially acceptable to start celebrating Christmas has been around for a while and each person has their own opinion on how to separate these holidays from one another.
With the three main holidays jammed together in the span of three months; Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, all the “seasons” are arguably intertwined. But recently, has Christmas been taking over all three of these seasons? Is Halloween dying because of the Christmas spirit? Is it okay to watch Christmas movies and listen to Christmas music before Halloween? Of course, the answers to these questions depend on who you ask, but here are my opinions on differentiating the holiday seasons.
The Halloween season starts with fall, being the first main holiday straight out of summer, Halloween gets from September 23rd to October 31st. During this time leading up to Halloween, people should be watching scary movies, attending costume-themed parties, and decorating their houses with fake webs, scarecrows, and tombstones. The Halloween season ends after the trick-or-treating is over and the month changes to November. Unfortunately, looking at results from recent years, trick-or-treating seems to be a dying tradition. About ¾ of the 17,000 respondents to the USA TODAY online poll claimed that they had fewer trick-or-treaters this year compared to previous years. Many possible factors could have contributed to this decline in trick-or-treaters including; inflation of candy this year, weather, the fact that this recent Halloween was on a Tuesday night, or is it the Christmas spirit?
For many, the Christmas season starts directly after Halloween. But what about Thanksgiving, and is there really a “Thanksgiving season”? In my opinion, there’s not actually a Thanksgiving season leading up to the holiday. There’s no popular music or movies to watch before the holiday. Thanksgiving should be celebrated during the break, meaning that the Christmas season should start after Halloween but be put on hold for the week of Thanksgiving when you should be spending time with family and enjoying the end of fall.
There’s no doubt that for many Christmas is the most anticipated time of the year. With countless Christmas movies and lots of great Christmas music, many begin celebrating Christmas as soon as it becomes socially acceptable! However, there are always complaints about Christmas being celebrated too early and getting in the way of other holidays. I personally think people can begin celebrating Christmas whenever. For Christmas is what people look forward to all year round. I’m not saying to put up the Christmas tree on the 4th of July, but I think it’s definitely okay to start celebrating Christmas early.
In conclusion, people should feel free to celebrate their favorite holiday whenever they want. But what I think about how the seasons should be separated is Halloween from September 1st until November 1st. The Christmas season follows directly afterward from November 1st to December 25th, but a pause for Thanksgiving break to celebrate being thankful with family.
