Christmas Comes Early

One of my peculiar pet peeves back in the States was how Christmas was becoming more and more commercialized and materialistic every year, and the start-date of the so-called "Christmas season" was pushed earlier and earlier until it reached the point where the day after Thanksgiving was turned into "The Biggest Shopping Day of the Year" instead of it previous designation, "the day to recover from turkey overdose." I think one wasn't even able to enjoy Thanksgiving as its own holiday any more, but just as the Preamble to Christmas.

Well, give thanks for Thanksgiving.

Here in Brazil, the holiday doesn't exist and I have therefore learned to recognize what a valuable role it played, even in its diminished preamble-esque state, as an artificial barrier to the further prolongation of unrestrained materialism in the guise of religious celebration. In simpler terms, you can't put up the Santas and trees until the turkeys are taken down. No Thanksgiving means no turkey decorations to take down, which means no limit to the ever-expanding Christmas season. The city of Recife is already covered with lights and trees, unsettlingly out-of-place sleighs and reindeer, and Santa has set up shop in the local malls - for at least the past two weeks already. The Christmas "sales" (yeah, right) are in full swing.

If you thought one month of pure unbridled consumer spending was just ridiculous, try two months! Why not just leave up the decorations year round?