Hero in a half shell said:
There seems to be a real hard push this year to start Christmas before Halloween and pretend like it's totally normal. I know 2 cities that already have their Christmas lights up (Their argument is that they aren't turning them on until the 10th November - so it's ok. Nevermind that even the 10th November is still a full month and a half away from Christmas)
I had someone at work boast earlier in the week that they've got all their Christmas shopping done already, and the radio stations are hedging into Christmas themed topics, but only just.
It's bizarre, but every institution seems to be trying to push Christmas onto us as soon as publicly acceptable - and have gone a week or two beyond that and just said "ain't our fault, it's our schedule."
Well, it's because when they convince people it's Christmas season it brings people out to do Christmas shopping and everyone makes money. Stores sell things, credit card bills are racked up, etc... and the longer it goes on the more people buy. Sure, technically someone might finish their Christmas shopping early, but then they are likely to do more when they see all these "sweet deals" coming out later.
I find it kind of deplorable too, but there isn't much that can be done. If it was up to me, I'd pass a law that says you can't begin The Christmas Season until two weeks before Christmas. Of course at the same time I'd also consider pushing the religious angle of things more heavily as well, not so much to ban it, but to remove a lot of the commercialism from it. Some is acceptable as the whole gift exchange thing is nice, but really Christmas has become this huge industry unto itself where it seems a lot of businesses plan all year just for that holiday, and sometimes I get the impression a lot of people celebrating the holiday don't even know what the point of a manger scene is.
At any rate, I guess this makes me sort of a grump.
At the same time, I'd also probably put a gag order on anyone who likes to try and ruin Thanksgiving by going off about all the horrible things we did to the Native Americans, basically de-liberalizing the holidays. In my basic opinion if you haven't lived a decade or more on the east coast you probably don't deserve an opinion on that subject. Largely because relations between settles and natives were pretty bloody friendly for a long time. Some tribes even helped fight for colonial independence, lifting the siege of Fort Shantok for example (and odds are you've never heard of that). Even during "The French and Indian War" which largely changed things, where a lot of natives largely sided with the French because they were offered a bigger deal, some tribes stood with us. On a lot of levels like most things it was all ruined by greed, basically deals were cut with tribes like The Mohegans and at a time when the colonies were relatively weak and had little reliable support from overseas they pushed for more resources, money, and parts of territory they had given over for settlement. This started a war they lost, and combined with other events lead to the domino effect your all familiar with. Guys like Chief Uncas are local heroes/legends in places like Connecticut, despite opposing us in the end because he fought at our side. Some places like "Uncas' leap" where he jumped a horse over a waterfall are local landmarks/legends. It should also be noted that despite being a "Chief" (or properly a Sachem, or "Stone Man") he did not make the decisions that lead to that war, his tribal council forced his hand, and he personally apparently sided with his people, making him a sort of tragic figure.... the basic point is it all comes down to a lot of political garbage over land rights and humans being opportunistic. Had some things on the east coast gone differently, Native/Settle relations might have repaired themselves due to remaining positive with some of the tribes that had up until that point backed the settlers. How do I know this? Easy I grew up in the area and worked for two different tribes both of which had their self-judgemental side (probably due to the fact that it's easy to be self-judgemental when your rolling in money, this was during the casino golden age down there). Thanksgiving itself is a positive thing and symbolizes people coming together, and it's a sort of reminder of what could have been I think. I get tired of people acting like the colonists grabbed all the food and then immediately started burning villages or whatever. Relations also didn't turn hostile for quite a while after the assistance, and largely came down to ambition and politics as I pointed out. The tribes on the east coast were pretty well assimilated to dealing with whites (they weren't ignorant or being manipulated) and even had a good grasp of the overall geo-political situation (ie who was backing what colony). On the east coast Natives did move around but were a lot more solitary than the stereotype, they lived in longhouses (not teepees or tents) and while not as advanced as some later portrayals did engage in farming and the like. The Mashantucket Pequot museum constructed a replica village, and it's different than what most people expect, and gives you a better sense of the kinds of people being dealt with (though it's also important to point out the Mashantuckets were hostile, and enemies of the Mohegans, indeed helping take out the Mashantuckets was one of the things Uncas did that made him sort of a hero...).
