When Halloween ended, people slowly woke up from their candy comas, but as soon as all of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups disappeared from Target, the back of the store was decked with Christmas decorations and families started to decorate their trees.

Decorating for Christmas too early has become an epidemic in America, and it needs to be stopped. The real acceptable day to decorate for Christmas is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. All too often, houses are brightly decorated with shimmering red and green tinsel and strings of lights before children’s Halloween costumes are put in storage. This blasphemy has led to yet another year of too many people treating Thanksgiving as a secondhand holiday. A light has been cast over Thanksgiving, and stores have opened on Thanksgiving for Black Friday shopping. The demand for buying Christmas presents over a month ahead of time leads to families torn apart on this supposedly family centered holiday.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I was guilty of Thanksgiving Black Friday shopping for the past two years, but I realized that it just isn’t worth it. People are forced to work on a day they should be surrounded by their family (and food). Although we celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December each year, as many as four weeks before, it becomes appropriate to start donning the ugly sweaters and listening to “Jingle Bell Rock.” This year, I witnessed my dearest family and friends fall into the trap of a Christmas season too early. However, I have had enough of Christmas music being played the week after Halloween. I mean, come on people; just let us have three weeks of November without getting right into the winter holiday season.

Christmas is easily my favorite holiday. Waking up early on Christmas morning and running downstairs to look at what Santa brought everyone is one of the most iconic parts of the holiday season, and every Christmas, children should be able to joyfully run downstairs until the harsh reality hits them that the fat man with the beard is actually a parent.

But when children are taught that the Christmas season really starts eight weeks before the actual date, eventually America will completely forget to celebrate Thanksgiving. If Christmas decorations pop up less than a week after Halloween, Thanksgiving gets overlooked. We should celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas, not the Twelve Weeks of Christmas.