Dear Department Stores and everyone who endorses the Consumerism of our culture that is spurred into overdrive around the holidays,

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I'm annoyed every single year when I see snowmen and reindeer decorations on October 1st next to my spooky, scary skeletons. I may be biased, since Halloween is my favorite holiday, but seriously? Each holiday has its own designated month in which to be celebrated and loved all its own. Christmas really doesn't need three months; if Halloween and Thanksgiving each start celebrating one month before it's seen as excessive celebration, decoration, and the like. So why is it okay for Christmas to start popping up in October (and in some cases as early as July), but Halloween doesn't start showing up until Mid-September if we're lucky?

Would it have anything to do with the fact that our culture spends the most on Christmas and all its extras over any other? Or the fact that Christmas is extremely profitable because it gives all of you big stores a chance to both raise and slash prices according to whim and make millions in very short amounts of time? Oh no, it would never have anything to do with that, now would it? Our culture loves to focus on that which is profitable and that which we can buy to fill the empty corners of our souls. Unfortunately, buying massive amounts of things does not fill any holes, just helps us to ignore them a little better.

Our culture has become so inundated with over-driven consumerism around the holidays, that we often times forget what we were supposed to be celebrating or enjoying in the first place. Instead, we focus all our energy on what new stuff we could get, or just in general enjoying the feeling of spending our hard earned dollars on what amounts to little more than a momentary whim. Of course, the earlier everything is displayed, the earlier you can start counting the Christmas profits.

I feel like if the focus was placed appropriately, we as a whole culture would be a little less consumerist driven. Would it take awhile? Of course. Would it stop all problematic spending? Obviously not. But I find myself feeling like all this extra focus on holidays outside of their given months is unnecessary for us all and increases the holiday frenzy of spending and overbearing consumerism. As companies, making money is the biggest concern, but I just wish that instead of money being our biggest concern, we could instead worry about how we wanted to spend time with our family and friends, rather than what we were going to get or give people in terms of physical possessions.

Our world is very materialistic and I can't help but feel like something has been pulled from us because of that.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Citizen