(I wrote this for my sister’s site two years ago, and since her site is no longer available I’m reposting it here.)
Like so many people this time of year, I hate when retailers roll out their Christmas merchandise as soon as Halloween is over. I even made an avatar a couple of years ago that simply asks, “One Holiday at a Time Please.”
When I went into my local CVS the day after Halloween this year to take advantage of the Half Price Chocolate Day specials I was surprised to see that all the space that had been dedicated to Halloween products and candy were now filled with Christmas merchandise, mostly candy. The lone exception was a simple shelf width of Halloween candy. That shelf was empty by the end of the day and Christmas candy had already filled the empty space.
As I was talking to a friend about it that evening I came up with an idea. Instead of having six holidays spread from the start of fall to the end of the year, let’s instead have one big holiday that extends from 31 October to 1 January. The name of this combined holiday?
Hal-giv-hanu-mas-za-year.
I know that’s a mouthful, but it does what retailers want to do anyway and make all these holidays one big celebration and marketing opportunity:
- Halloween
- Thanksgiving
- Hanukkah
- Christmas
- Kwanzaa
- New Year’s Eve
I know people will be angry with me, saying each holiday should be its own celebration, and families can celebrate each individual holiday as they choose to do. But I ask you to look at it from a marketing perspective. This way all new holiday decorations can be created for the continuing holiday and this way we won’t be kvetching because Christmas decorations push out the skeletons and tombstones instead of making turkeys and horns of plenty follow the graveyard decorations. Plus, if you use an advent calendar think about how much fun it will be for the young tykes of all ages with an extra month worth of doors to open. What do you guys think? Are you going to join me in wishing people a
(For those who don’t know me that well, my tongue is quite firmly planted in my cheek, but as Aaron Altman says in Broadcast News, “I’m semi-serious here.”)