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Hooray! Holidays are here

I have a small problem with shopping for Halloween costumes among aisles and aisles of icicle lights and Christmas decorations. I’m sorry, but the last time I checked, Christmas was a winter holiday.
Don’t get me wrong – I love Christmas. In fact, I’m a fan of almost any holiday that allows me to jump on a bandwagon, whether it be picking pumpkins while waiting for the Great Pumpkin to show his head, looking for colored eggs hidden by a giant mythical bunny or setting out milk and cookies for an already obese man creeping down my chimney.
However, Christmas is like a tiny little orgasm in that part of my mind decked out in tinsel and colored lights.
I don’t think I’m alone in my feelings on this either. In fact, according to a national poll done by Sacred Heart University, 48.5 percent of Americans said Christmas was their favorite holiday.
Each year, I wait for the holiday season to roll around because I love all the accoutrements that come with it. Gingerbread houses, candy canes, fresh cut Christmas trees and shiny ornaments can’t help but bring back all those memories of family holidays when you are away from home.
But with each year, it seems my wait gets shorter and shorter. Now, you would think that myself, being a Christmas Crazy, would not mind the fact I have to wait less time between holiday seasons. But that’s where you will be sadly mistaken.
I never was the kid to wake up at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning to open my presents, because I knew it would all come in due time. Same thing goes for the holiday season though – don’t rush it or you risk losing the surprise that comes with it.
Walking into Walgreens a week before Halloween, I noticed the big middle holiday section that could have been devoted to Halloween (a holiday that is just as much fun, I assure you) had the small hint of pine trees in air and drippings of fake snow from the shelves.
Now I’m sorry, but I think we may have missed Halloween and Thanksgiving, which just so happens to be the closest competitor for favorite holiday with 15.9 percent popularity vote. While I understand the notion of decorating for Thanksgiving is lost on some, mostly because the idea of having a giant inflatable turkey donning a pilgrim hat and vest or Indian headdress is frightening, there are some families that do just that.
Mine is one of them.
Despite the fact Thanksgiving goes under the radar for decorating, it’s still a highly celebrated holiday complete with feasting and family get-togethers. In my book, that’s a holiday.
This is not to say I don’t try to rush the season, too. I’ve been tuned into the iTunes Christmas radio station since the beginning of November. However, I have yet to start frosting any cookies or adorning my house with twinkling strands of 250 count bulbs of every color. Rule of thumb – don’t turn on your lights until the day after Thanksgiving. We wouldn’t want to “outshine” the Pilgrims (insert rimshot here).
I guess the whole point of this column is to point out how even our holidays are being rushed in this fast-paced, money-driven society. We don’t want to turn every holiday into some campy, meaningless Hallmark Holiday – that slot has been reserved for Valentine’s Day, the one holiday I cannot stand.
This holiday season, I challenge you to suppress that urge to go out and trim the tree a month and half early. Don’t bake those cookies so far in advance that Santa leaves stale crumbs on the plate.
Take some time to stop and smell, well, the poinsettias.
Jeremy Behrens is a junior English secondary education and theatre performance major from Ottawa. He is the Scout features reporter.
Please direct questions, comments and other responses to jbehrens@bradley.edu
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