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The Time Before the Time Before the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Thanksgiving? Never heard of it.

Yes, it’s that most wonderful time when all can gather round to collectively watch people forget Thanksgiving exists, and move straight on to anticipating a holiday more than a month away. But what causes this strange phenomenon, and how can you, confused University student, protect yourself from it?
Yes, it’s that most wonderful time when all can gather round to collectively watch people forget Thanksgiving exists, and move straight on to anticipating a holiday more than a month away. But what causes this strange phenomenon, and how can you, confused University student, protect yourself from it?

All the signs are here — the leaves have turned brown, the flannel has come out and turkey sales are going through the roof. The inevitable is coming — unseasonably early Christmas celebrations. Yes, it’s that most wonderful time when all can gather around to collectively watch people forget Thanksgiving exists and move straight on to anticipating a holiday more than a month away. But what causes this strange phenomenon, and how can you, confused University student, protect yourself from it?

The first thing one has to understand about jumping the gun on Christmas is its relation to Halloween and Thanksgiving. You see, Halloween presents the last widespread opportunity to go out, dress ridiculously and avoid responsibility. After Halloween the downcast university student has nothing to look forward to but sad, intensely problematic, puritan Thanksgiving. Instead of looking forward to a holiday that has declined in popularity every year since 1621, many elect to swoon over the jolly carols and masterfully crafted Coca-Cola brainwashing techniques of Christmas.

What, then, can we do to stop people from hanging up their lights before the weather forecast breaks 50 degrees? The answer is simple — make Christmas less like Halloween, and more like Thanksgiving. Embrace the somber, weighty and morally pious past of the year’s anticipated holiday, and do away with your gleeful consumerist cheer. The steps are as follows —

  1. If you hear Mariah Carey playing, turn her off. She makes enough every Christmas to pay your tuition ten times, so if grinchy tendencies don’t sour you against
    All I Want For Christmas Is You,” do it out of spite. This deprives the devious early Christmas-celebrator of a soundtrack; now we tackle the second part of their beloved aesthetic — the decorations. 
  2. Make sure to complain loudly and clearly about any Santa Clauses, reindeer or red-and-green lights — remember to distinguish these from lights put on for seductive purposes! — seen in your local community. With no music and no background indicators, most Christmas zealots will simply forget their favorite holiday is coming up. Only one thing can set you up for failure now, the weather. 
  3. In order to ensure nobody notices Christmas coming up, the determined student should endeavor to keep the weather warm, and above all, prevent snow at all costs. Methods for this last tip are left for the creative reader.

With the sound, sights and weather of your environment firmly controlled, only the most doggedly determined of Thanksgiving-skippers will still be attempting to make the pre-Yuletide gay, and it is at this point that we must come to hard truths. Some people don’t want to celebrate their holidays at the right times. Some people hate November. Some people simply cannot be reasoned with. At the end of the day, no matter how well you’ve put off Christmas, you’ll have to learn to cope with unreasonably early holiday cheer. You can wear earplugs and stare at the ground, you can trade Christmas now for skipping New Year’s, or you can do breathing exercises whenever you start seeing the signs. My personal approach, and the one I believe best exemplifies the True Meaning of the Month Before Christmas, is to satisfy yourself with what you already have — the knowledge that, come January, we’ll all be equally sad there are no holidays to celebrate.

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