Parker:

As we can all agree, the month of October is Spooky Season. Terrors, frights and all the horror your heart can desire. But once November hits, it’s officially the time for holly and jolly.

I’m not just saying this because Starbucks starts selling their peppermint mochas or because Target now has decorations and fun sweaters on full display (though that does help set the mood). I’m saying this because the start of November through New Years is simply a festive time all around.

Some people are usually like “What about Thanksgiving?” “You’re skipping Thanksgiving!” “Don’t forget Thanksgiving.” Blah blah blah. 

I’ve never once said I was skipping or forgetting Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is simply clumped with the rest of the holiday season. 

Thanksgiving is great. Fantastic food, time with family and friends, it’s all very festive. Keyword there: FESTIVE. In fact, a family tradition of mine is to watch “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” every Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving does not deserve its own month. It’s great, but need I remind you, it originated from mass genocide. It has become more than that, but it is still only worthy of being part of the grander holiday season. 

The holiday season is a great time, need I say my favorite time, need I also say the jolliest, best time of the year.

Now, I celebrate Christmas, but obviously not everyone does. That’s why there’s Hannukuah, Kwanzaa, the winter solstice, Bodhi Day, New Years AND Thanksgiving. That’s not even all of them. There’s lots of holidays and festivities from Nov. 1 through Jan. 1. 

So, to conclude this, yes I do acknowledge Thanksgiving exists. However, it is part of the greater holiday season. So yes, you are allowed to celebrate, break out that fun sweater and put up that Christmas tree come the first of November. 

Drink all that delicious eggnog your heart desires, blast Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” at full volume; and enjoy that turkey, stuffing and New Years champagne. 

Don’t let any Grinch tell you otherwise!

Maria:

The winter holidays should not be celebrated until after Thanksgiving. There. I said it.

Christmas is the dominant holiday of our capitalistic, Christian-dominated country. I personally don’t know anyone who decides to break out the Hanukkah or Kwanzaa decorations the day after Spooky Season ends. Please feel free to introduce me if you do. 

Christmas spirit is easy to wrap up with a bow and sell to everyone who celebrates the holiday, religious or not. It’s the perfect ending to a long, crappy year full of drudge and misery. Christmas time is the merry light at the end of the tunnel before we’re back to the cycle of cynicism.

I love Christmas. It’s my second favorite holiday behind Valentine’s Day, but it has a time and a place. Black Friday to New Year’s Eve.

I don’t like Thanksgiving. I don’t feel the patriotic pride that is celebrating the genocide of Indigenous people so that Europeans could settle this land and have an excuse to eat turkey and be grateful one day a year. Just be grateful every day, and then the holiday is moot. 

I also concede that I have a weird relationship with Thanksgiving because I can’t eat most of the traditional dishes.

Call me a Grinch or Scrooge, but I will not be bringing out my gingerbread, mistletoe or peppermint mocha until after I’ve seen the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I think when brought out too early, the desire for holiday spirit is saturated. I started my winter festivities the day after Halloween in 2020 to attempt to recover any semblance of happiness amid the COVID-19 pandemic. By the time actual Christmas rolled around, I was Mariah Carey-d and jingle-bell-ed out. I had been watching Hallmark Christmas movies since the calendar flipped to November, and I felt like I had seen them all before the 12 days before Christmas had even started!

I think limiting the amount of time we are allowed to celebrate something makes it more special. There’s more anticipation and more appreciation of the time we do get to have it.

So hold on to your reindeer and don’t deck your halls just quite yet. Enjoy the anticipation of holiday spirit in November. Come the day after Thanksgiving, I’ll be ready with my jingle bells on and my Michael Bublé Christmas album blasting.