{"id":11471,"date":"2019-11-28T01:51:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T09:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=11471"},"modified":"2019-11-28T01:51:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T09:51:34","slug":"opinion-in-response-to-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/opinion-in-response-to-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-thanksgiving\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: In response to \u201cIt\u2019s beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caity Healy<\/strong>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Managing Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to preface this by saying, yes, I am listening to Christmas music as I write this. But also, I\u2019m looking at the Thanksgiving decorations up around my house, too. Because holiday mixing is a thing, folks. With that, let\u2019s jump into this response.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Issue 7, my editor-in-chief published an opinion piece titled \u201cIt\u2019s beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving,\u201d where she asserted that we should not jump straight from Halloween to Christmas, bypassing Thanksgiving. Let me say, the author is a wonderful and kind person, and I have the utmost respect for her and her opinions. That said \u2014 sorry Cora, I\u2019ve got to disagree. Well, kind of.<\/span><\/p>\n

Look, I love Thanksgiving. When I think of the holiday, I remember my childhood; I remember the tradition of my dad putting Christmas lights up on Thanksgiving morning so that it would be ready by the time guests arrived for dinner. I remember Christmas music playing through the house as the aroma of my mom\u2019s cooking flooded our home. I remember getting up early to turn on the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade, watching with twinkling eyes as Santa waved to the crowd in his float.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanksgiving is what you make it. To my family, it was never a day completely separate from Christmas. My childhood memories of the two holidays blur together \u2014 and I love that. I love the warmth of celebrating both holidays at once; I love letting spirits ring for as long as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from my anecdotal experience, studies show that putting holiday decorations up early can actually make people happier. Psychoanalyst Steve McKeown told Unilad that \u201cIn a world full of stress and anxiety, people like to associate two things that make them happy and Christmas decorations evoke those strong feelings of childhood.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I do have some issues with this \u2014 it\u2019s not always the feeling of childhood that people love, and the holiday isn\u2019t always Christmas \u2014 but he gets the point. People often associate this time of year with happy memories or feelings, so let them. His statement has been confirmed by other scientists, such as psychologist Deborah Serani.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, I get what Cora\u2019s piece was saying. I just think it should be tweaked a little. My opinion is simply let people celebrate what makes them happy. If you prefer going all out for Thanksgiving, do it. If you prefer treating Thanksgiving as a pregame to the holidays, you do you. In a time when there\u2019s limited opportunities to take time and do what actually makes you happy, I think we should let people take advantage of this opportunity. Let people celebrate holidays in a way that truly makes them happy.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at chealy16@wou.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caity Healy\u00a0 |\u00a0 Managing Editor I\u2019d like to preface this by saying, yes, I am listening to Christmas music as I write this. But also, I\u2019m looking at the Thanksgiving decorations up around my house, too. Because holiday mixing is a thing, folks. With that, let\u2019s jump into this response. In Issue 7, my editor-in-chief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":10024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"modified_by":"The Western Howl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}