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PR & SEO Blog from Silicon Alley

Christmas before Thanksgiving

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The holiday season is upon us, yet it seems that in recent years, Christmas is center stage before turkeys are even bought or stuffed for Thanksgiving.

If we lived in most any other part of the country, this would be most evident in the malls, where sometimes even before Halloween, Christmas trees, wreaths, elves and Santas mingle with crazed shoppers. But we live in New York City, where instead of malls, we find ourselves in a stampede on 34^th Street with Salvation Army volunteers incessantly ringing their bells for people to throw pennies into their red buckets.

And it’s not just a result of getting older and time seeming to pass faster, it’s practically a scientific fact. Heather Dougherty from Hitwise points out in a Reuters piece about Cyber Monday that, "The holiday season is starting earlier and earlier every year, which is what consumers joke about, but it's honestly happening.”

So what happened to Thanksgiving? It’s a holiday after all, so why does it fall out of line with the “holiday season?” Once our jack-o-lanterns are extinguished, and sometimes before they are even lit, the holiday “spirit” in the form of growing anxiety about what to buy loved ones sneaks up on us. Couple that with story upon ad upon story about shopping this holiday season, and we are thoroughly inundated with one message: BUY BUY BUY!

Thanksgiving thus becomes irrelevant. As I was looking through the top dailies today, I was unable to find much on the actual holiday. Rather, articles on Black Friday and Cyber Monday were abundant.

But don’t get me wrong. I am not knocking consumerism or even the media’s approach to greeting the holiday season. Chances are that I too would be less inclined to read a story about how the pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving than I would about where to find the best sales on Friday.

Happy Thanksgiving… But more importantly, Happy Shopping!

Labels: advertising, Marketing, media