Blending holidays
It’s probably simple nostalgia, but I recall Christmas being quite distinct and separate from other holidays.
There was a Halloween sugar overdose in late October. A full month later came the unending amounts of turkey during Thanksgiving. Then was a 30-day mad dash to put lights on the house and presents under the tree for Christmas.
Somewhere along the line, my perceptions improved. Or the adeptness of soulless marketing shills. Either way, I noticed that increasingly Christmas would “begin” immediately after Thanksgiving, as every shop in town immediately through up their decorations the very day after Thanksgiving as if to psychologically induce passers-by to empty their wallets for Christmas beginning immediately.
Later in life, I witnessed a change that was definitely new. Some brazen store marketers would cross the line and beging putting up Christmas decorations a week or so before Thanksgiving, as a way of planting the seeds for the big After-Thanksgiving-Day Sale… which later became known as Black Friday (while a financial etymology, it nonetheless suggests the death of Xmas joy at the hands of blindingly overcommercialized saleshouting).
Last October, in Houston, Texas, I shook my head in disbelief as store after store rolled out the Christmas lights and other Santa-oriented decorations. Before Thanksgiving. Before Halloween. Yes, apparently, folks should be buying crap made in China for a full 3 months these days, just to keep up with the nonexistant Joneses of our TV-driven imagination.
But here in Romania, it’s the opposite situation.
Christmas is unable to be disturbed by Halloween or Thanksgiving, since they do not exist here. And the merchants are only still at the beginning stages of overhyping the buying public into a comatose state of consumerism.
And yet, change creeps in. Only, it is from the other direction, my friends. Witness the encroachment found at a local grocery store in cartierul meu.
Uite.
December 27th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Yep..I’m feeling like i’ve just read the prompter from Stirile ProTv where every wind is a “storm” and at every car crash the driver “races towards death”. Obviously i dont bvelieve that “in Texas store after store rolled out Christmas light before thanksgiving”.
All I see in this this picture is a few bags of made for Easter Haribo(yammmi..) sitting on a display in some shop in December. That’s it. Call me realistic. Blending holidays my arse.
PS: now i understand why u like romania so much… romanians ar poets and storytellers just like you ;) Nothing wrong with it now.
Cheers
December 27th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Mihai from Brasov – Welcome to the show! Yes, I agree with you that the news in Romania and America are both full of hyperbole regarding the day’s events. Minor actions become big problems, celebrity nuances become the Thing You Must Know, and the dramatically selfish power grabs of politicians are euphemized as well-meaning patriotism.
However, I must stick to the facts regarding Christmas decorations appearing before Thanksgiving. And just recently starting to appear even before Halloween. That there’s the cold hard truth, hoss. And now I’ve seen the first vestiges of holiday creep in Romania, coming from the reverse. You can dismiss the advance team as random all you like, but the larger army is still coming behind it.
Stories and poetry? What, me? Ba da!
December 29th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Holy crap! Easter????!!!!!?????
I distinctly remember shaking my head in disgust right around Halloween as I was forced to view the Christmas-mania goods placed under my nose during shopping ventures here in Washington.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
We have stores here, for example…the Christmas Tree Shops…that are rolling in holiday “cheer” all damn year long….we may as well just lump all the holidays together and get them overwith in just one easy day.
We saw christmas decorations in walmart this yr, the first week of november. Right nest to the plastic trees and “festive” holiday wrapped candy..which was two months old before the holiday even arrived.
How is it one from Brasov can determine what’s going on in US department stores? Unless you have hacked into the covetted walmart security system and get your kicks out of watching America’s white trash dodging falling prices…!
On another note…we may only be in Bucharest for 2-6 hours on the 20th of Jan….I’ll let you know what’s up when we buy the tickets. Any requests of goods from the US of A? Maybe some Cadbury Cream eggs….yes they are out..I’m not kidding….unfortunately