As the Christmas season gets earlier and earlier, let’s not forget its true meaning.

By Jonathan Wagner, Staff Writer

It’s the most wonderful time of the year — the Christmas season — and it seems to get earlier every year. Christmas decorations can be found displayed for sale in supermarkets before Halloween, and the songs can be found on some radio stations starting Halloween night. Some people love this; the earlier we start celebrating Christmas, the better for them. Others wish that the Christmas season wouldn’t start until December. And some people fall somewhere in the middle. A view that isn’t uncommon, although it isn’t necessarily popular either, is that it would be appropriate for the Christmas season to wait until after Thanksgiving at the very least.

Personally, I would like to hold off on listening to Christmas music until at least after Thanksgiving because the music mostly all sounds the same. By the time it actually starts getting close to Christmas I am usually tired of the music and occasionally tired of the season itself. While I certainly love Christmas, and I don’t mind getting presents either, the Christmas season doesn’t really feel like Christmas to me. The Christmas season is all about Santa and presents and decorations and Hallmark movies, all of which are fine on their own. For the most part, though, they mask what Christmas is really about.

Christmas is about the ultimate gift humanity ever received: Jesus. We give gifts because we have already received the best gift we could ever get. It’s not supposed to be about the gifts, but we sure spend a lot of money on them. The Christmas season now is about jingle bells and flying reindeer, snow and presents, classic Christmas movies and Hallmark Christmas movies.

The entirety of the Christmas season is commercialized. That’s why the Christmas season doesn’t feel like Christmas to me. That’s why I’m not the biggest fan of hearing Christmas songs on November first and seeing Christmas decorations filling aisles in the store before Halloween. If the Christmas season is your thing, more power to you, but hopefully now you can understand why some people may not have the same amount of “Christmas spirit.”