La Voz

Issue date: 12/1/08 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Galen Oback

Call me Mr. Scrooge, or even the Grinch, but keep all the holiday baggage in the holiday season. The year's events come in and out of all of our lives fast enough, and there is just no sense in rushing it.

Excuse me if I sound like the villain from Whoville, out to steal Christmas, but there is something about hearing Christmas carols when Halloween has barely passed and Thanksgiving is yet to come that makes me want to rip the holidays apart.

I am a very typical person. Yes, I believed in Santa Claus at one point, and yes, I love the food and presents, but as each holiday passes, it gets more mundane and tedious. The only positive thing I see positive about the holiday season is that it gives people an excuse to have a few days off to be with their family (even though some may not even want to).

Are the holidays really worth all the trouble, especially with all these crazed holiday-happy people trying to jump the gun and start the season months too soon? The time leading up to the holidays is filled with stress, and people rushing it just make it worse.

For instance, playing holiday songs and commercials this early confuses people. I know a few college students going to schools away from home who say all this holiday stuff makes them think it's winter break already.

On an environmental note, let's talk about the people who always put up their Christmas lights early and leave them on until mid-June. I'll be honest: the lights don't annoy me as much, since I think they can be awesome if they are done right. But people who put them on early and leave them on late don't understand the climate we live in today. What is the positive outcome of all these people wasting energy putting these lights on so early? There is none - it's purely decoration.

But none of this comes close to my biggest peeve about the holidays coming too soon: holiday shoppers.

I live a block away from Valley Fair, and already there aren't enough parking spaces to satisfy the army of holiday shoppers. What does this mean? Residents like me get their home parking stolen by crazy shoppers. Neighbors of mine go as far as to put towing signs and cones on their sidewalks just so they have a spot to park in after getting home from work.

That's not even the whole story. Once you finish the search of a lifetime for parking - a process that includes following people who leave the mall to their parking spots and having light signal wars with other cars who try to steal your parking - there is the shopping itself. I have never seen so many people in the mall as I have during the time leading up to the holiday season.

That brings up another environmental problem: population. There are just too many people to be in the malls, fighting over items and bumping into one another.

Look, the holidays may have initially been a good thing, but as the season threatens to take over the entire year, it makes you think. Is all of this really worth it?

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