By Carolyn Bossmann
Staff Writer
’Tis the season to argue about the order of the holidays. With the end of November comes the age-old debate of which came first, the Christmas decorations or the turkey dinner. The decorations for Christmas are rolled out at the beginning of November, sparking the question: Is it acceptable to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving has even occurred?
Nordstrom has a long history of making slightly snarky signs each year that state: “We won’t be decking our halls until Friday, November 29. Why? We just like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time.” Others have followed suit, with some consumers going as far as to boycott buying Christmas decoration until Dec. 1.
“I like Christmas … What I don’t like is the way people whose only interest in Christmas is money have moved in on a non-commercial holiday as Thanksgiving,” CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney said in a weekly commentary. What Rooney does not seem to realize, however, is that Thanksgiving is commercial.
America is known as a melting pot of many different races, backgrounds and cultures. As of 2012, over 40 million people in the U.S. were immigrants, which accounts for approximately 13 percent of the population, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Meanwhile, Thanksgiving is specifically an American holiday, one that is surrounded by a lot of myths and actions that some say caused the beginning of a major genocide. In addition, over 45 million Thanksgiving turkeys are eaten yearly, along with all the cran-berryoriented food Americans eat each Thanksgiving. What Thanksgiving has become is just a fancy dinner Americans coin-cidentally have on a specific day. The reason is because Thanksgiving is truly a day that celebrates the grand friendship of the pilgrims and the Native Americans, a friendship that did not last long. The celebration of a winter holiday is fairly universal. There are many different variations, including Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, but they all have the same key factor: giving and helping others instead of our-selves. Yes, I know Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks to those around you, but I personally don’t take this holiday that seri-ously, mostly because of its ori-gins. Maybe I’m judging a holiday too harshly, but if either of these holidays had the right to be cele-brated whenever anyone wanted, it would be Christmas/Kwanzaa/ Hanukkah. I believe anyone can celebrate whatever holiday they want, whenever they want, as long as it stays true to the central point of the holiday itself. To put this debate to rest once and for all, let’s just say everyone can decorate whenever they want, and that’s that. The holidays are not about debat-ing when someone can put up holiday lights or a wreath, and if that is your main concern this holiday season, I’d say you’ve already missed the point.
