Recently I’ve heard a lot of people complaining that Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier every year. It use to be that the radio would start playing Christmas music right after Thanksgiving and then suddenly now Halloween isn’t even over and there’s already Christmas decorations at all of the stores. You know something? I for one am okay with that and here’s why.
Though I completely disagree with stores staying open on Thanksgiving day all throughout the night in order to get the shoppers earlier and earlier, I believe that is less corporate greed and more of a sign of how little we as a society (that also includes the people volunteering to work on Thanksgiving) care about a day of Thanking God for the things he’s provided for us anymore.
If a company or store forces employees to work on Thanksgiving then that’s just wrong, absolutely positively wrong but that’s also why this is a free country and we are free to go out and find other work and employers that will respect our beliefs over their own bottom line, even in this great “recession” you have a choice as an American where and when you will express your religious beliefs.
With that being said now it’s time for me to explain why I’m okay with an earlier Christmas, I’m now married with two small children and love watching them this time of the year, but that wasn’t always the case. For those of us that have had to miss Christmas’ at home or with our family because of work or more important commitments I for one would like to make up for all of the time I lost.
I’ve spent too many Christmas’ in Iraq or on Ship when I was in the military, too many Christmas’ making phone calls home and decorating a hole in the wall and refusing to listen to “I’ll be home for Christmas” knowing that it would make me feel like crap afterwards. I’ve spent too many Christmas’ with a family at home crying and wishing I was home, too many Christmas’ with a wife that can’t listen to the same songs either.
I can count in both hands the number of times I’ve opened up mailed gifts and had Amazon wrap mines from a far, I also live on the other side of the country from the family I grew up with (California to Florida) and on the other side of the world from the people that they grew up with and that helped raise me (US to Brazil) so since leaving home at the age of 17 I can remember going home maybe twice in the last 13 years for Christmas (I’m now 30).
So for me now with kids of my own and a family of my own Christmas is one of those things that I’m okay with getting a little bit more of each year, it helps to make up for all of the crap I’ve put up with over the years (do you know how many suicide attempts occur over Christmas in the military, especially when you’re the one standing duty on December 24th.)
If you’re the type that’s complaining that it’s starting too early every year and that Christmas won’t be the same anymore if it starts taking over every other holiday, all I can tell you is that it hasn’t been the same for many of us for a very long time. As someone who personally doesn’t celebrate Halloween in our family, I for one welcome the quick passage from evil to joy all at once.
Again as I mentioned above, I’m against forcing people to work on what I consider a sacred holiday like Thanksgiving but in the spirit of that be thankful if you’ve always enjoyed your Christmas’ and had a place or family (even if it wasn’t yours) to spend with on Christmas day, be grateful if you’ve never had to spend the entire holiday season in abject misery or if you’ve dreaded the holidays because you knew where you’d have to be on Christmas day.
Allow the rest of us to be okay with an earlier Christmas, to make up for all of the lost time, energy and sadness we felt for so many years or decades where we may not have had what you had with these added few days, and this Thanksgiving as well as Christmas be thankful and grateful that you may get to celebrate it all a little bit more than someone else whom like myself has spent too many holidays away from everyone and everything they care about no matter what their circumstance.
That is why I’m okay with an Earlier Christmas…
