There's a plague here in America.

It's a cancer, it's an infectious growth that is spreading to every corner of our great nation and plaguing it with the sounds of "ho ho ho" over the Thanksgiving table.

Some Americans believe that the greatest threat to our nation comes from outside sources: terror cells such as ISIS, or increasing tensions with rogue states like North Korea. Others will say that our greatest threat comes from within: social divisions crafted by the two-party system and an increase of racially-motivated crimes. To emphasize my point: these issues pale in comparison to the real issue in our society.

The true threat to American democracy, my friends, is a threat with a face, a villain whose dastardly schemes have passed before us without so much as causing an eye to bat. This threat, ladies and gentlemen, is premature Christmas decorating.

For me, it started when I reached high school, around the beginning of my sophomore year. During the winter time, I noticed that I didn't have the same sense of holiday cheer that I did, say, in middle school. I wasn't driving myself into a Russian Sleep Experiment-style madness of waiting all night with my eyes wide open, ready to pounce out of bed the moment my alarm ticked to 6:00 AM. Instead, it felt as though I was...tired. My heart wasn't swelling with warmth at the thought of presents under the treat, instead it was swollen with heartburn from one too many fish patties at Christmas Eve dinner.

It was after this revelation that I began to approach the holiday season with a curious, inductive mind. I questioned everything and everyone. From engaging in life-or-death duels with heavyset soccer moms at a Black Friday sale, to interrogating the humblest Salvation Army Santa Claus.

Some may call my methods extreme. Some may call them ruthless. Others still way say that it's "illegal" to "kidnap employees in elf costumes at the local Toys-R-Us for scientific purposes."

I say that my methods work.

And so they have! For in the time span of my experiments, I have garnered enough facts and data from my...voluntary subjects that have corroborated my hypothesis: the hypothesis that premature Christmas decorating is ruining the holidays and turning them into a commercialized plague upon a one joyful time of year.

My opponents will say that the lack of holiday cheer is natural: that it's just "mature" and "part of growing up" to feel less excited about the holidays. They will spit in my face, push me on the ground, call me a baby, and say that I'm a "shitty little idiot" for thinking that an adult could possibly possess the same childlike wonder during the winter season, before punching me in the lower abdomen. This is what separates those who are enlightened about the threat to our beloved holidays from those who remain willfully ignorant.

This holiday season is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.

All the deal-hungry soccer moms and Santa skeptics will look up and shout "Save us!"

And I'll look down and whisper...

"No."

So come, ignorant masses. Join my in my righteous protest. Ban all Christmas decorating activity that takes place prior to the end of Thanksgiving dinner.

Let's take back the holidays, y'all. #stopprematureChristmasdecorating