A fixture of this time of year, in fact a fixture of modern life, is season creep.
Season creep, for the blissfully unaware, is the practice of subtly, year-by-year, moving the traditional start date for holiday festivities further and further forward on the calendar.
The sorry state of season creep is especially pronounced in the late summer and early fall. Halloween decorations often begin appearing in stores by the end of August, but by far the worst offender is Christmas creep.
Almost immediately after the end of Halloween, all of American retail launches immediately from selling metric tons of candy and cheap costumes to Christmas-themed decorations and goodies.
Leave aside the obvious commentary on American consumer society inherent in the idea of skipping the holiday about giving thanks for the blessings you have in favor of going straight on to the one that involves getting presents, Christmas creep is even more obnoxious because there is no escape.
Every radio station is playing Christmas songs appropriate for their particular genre, every store likewise. Decorations line every street and there is no solace in merely staying home and watching television, because every channel is in full Christmas mode with back to back-to-back Christmas specials of every show and holiday movie under the sun.
And it isn’t just holiday creep that’s afflicting this campus, this nation – the world even. Even that most loathsome of times, the presidential election season, began a full year and a half ahead of the 2020 election with the first Democratic debate being held in June.
We at The Pacer don’t hate Christmas or any other holiday for that matter, but what we do stand against is a cultural push to make some holidays and some events to take up more than their fair share of the year. After all, 365 days is plenty to go around.
