If there’s one thing I can not stand about this time of year is the fact that before I have made my rounds in wishing my relatives Happy Thanksgiving; before I have even gotten my plate full of mash potatoes and turkey breast and have gorged myself enough to be bloated for the next couple months, everywhere I turn I am hounded by Christmas.

Last weekend the Christmas tree in San Francisco Union Square was put up and the lights were starting to be hung. The outsides of many big stores had already setup their Christmas window displays. If the medical industry were as ahead of the game as most of these organizations, not to mention a lot more money hungry and materialistic, we’d probably would have cured cancer and every other disease that comes to mind ages ago.

I don’t understand the need to hurry the holidays – really—I see no reason to rush myself into debt with all the Christmas gifts I’m required to buy. Whatever ‘joy’ the Holidays once represented has been smeared and turned into a marketing ploy for every big company with a new toy to sell. The only thing that moves off the shelves on Thanksgiving is food. Until Best Buy starts stocking yams and cranberry sauce the marketing of Christmas on November 1st will be going strong for years to come.

Seriously though, why is everyone trying to speed up to Black Friday? I’ve already seen from a distance the insane mass of people that turn up on Black Friday and have no desire to get trampled by shoppers on a quest for whatever’s hot this year. I’ll most likely be fast asleep when the stampede breaks out at six in the morning – recovering from my food hangover. That—fellow Thanksgiving-ers – is what normal people do after Thanksgiving. I detest whoever made this after Turkey Day tradition, not to mention whoever decided to start putting out giant Christmas displays in early November. Disgusting…
—Eming Piansay