Rantings of a New Yorker

This year, the day after Halloween, I did my usual rounds of the retail stores to buy my Halloween candy at 75-90% off. It’s a great way to stock up on chocolate. This year, however, I’ve noticed, again, that All Saints Day has also been dubbed “get the Christmas crap set up” day by retailers. I used to enjoy Christmas but, with it coming earlier and earlier each year, I have come to despise the holiday, avoid it, and dream of the new year instead.

When I was younger, Christmas displays didn’t appear until after Thanksgiving. You would have the weekend off and Black Friday was a day of sales, none of which started at 5am, and a time to go and look at all the Christmas decorations being put up.

This year, my local Kmart didn’t even take the time to mark down the Halloween candy the day after the holiday. Two employees told me they would be doing that after they put the Christmas decorations up because they had to finish them by 11am. Their chocolate was shoved into a corner, partially covered up by boxes of Christmas items that were to be displayed on the shelves that were, just yesterday, covered in Halloween items.

Target had their candy marked down and their Christmas trees, candy, and other displays were already up by 10am. As I strolled down to Sears, who doesn’t have candy but had other things I needed to buy that day, were also scrambling to put their fake trees up and string their store with Christmas lights.

This morning, I read in the Daily News that the Monk Christmas special will be airing tonight at 10pm. We are a week away from Thanksgiving and we have the first Christmas special of the television season. I agree with the article that this is way too early for Christmas specials and that

Every year, networks crank out more holiday telemovies and holiday-theme series episodes. And every year, those same networks want to repeat and recycle as much old holiday inventory as possible – and do it earlier every year, so they can repeat more of those hours and sell and place more holiday-related ads.

The only holiday movie I watch anymore is A Christmas Story, which we all know TNT is going to rerun for 24 hours straight on Christmas Eve. I’ll watch it once, maybe twice this holiday season. Most of the Christmas movies I saw as a child are considered too cheesy to air today. Last year, only about half of them actually aired. When they were on television, I was so sick of the holiday that I didn’t even bother to watch them. By the time the holiday actually arrives, we’ll all be so disgusted by Christmas themed stuff that we will be looking forward to waking up on the 26^th of December.

I loathe this time of year. I used to get mildly upset when Christmas started happening the week of Thanksgiving, since I am an old fuddy-duddy and want to stick to the traditional ways of no Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. Now, when I start seeing the decorations and sales start on November 1^st, I completely lose all joy for the holiday and wish it would go away. I don’t enjoy Christmas because I’m sick of seeing the decorations and sale after sale boasting that I need all this stuff to make my holiday complete.

I understand that stores are out to make a buck and need to maximize their profits as much as they can but they have lost money on me. I now hate Christmas and hate it earlier each year. I hate the consumerism of the holiday. I hate the greediness that retailers have taught society. I despise that people who take more pleasure in being greedy and asking for stuff than giving and being helpful to others.

I suppose I’ll just go back indoors now and wait until 2007 arrives. In the meantime, I’ll keep shouting at the kids that keep playing on my lawn. Bah Humbug indeed.