Clearly, turkeys hold no candle to jingle bells.
That’s at least how companies seem to want you to feel. Many stores have decorations up and some people have already broken out their holiday sweaters, even though the trees are not bare just yet.
Coming off of any fast-paced semester, it can be difficult to remember even the day of the week. Hasty excitement can exacerbate this, trumping some traditions for their marketable likability.
University of Maryland students discussed the encroachment of Christmas on Thanksgiving, and shared their own experiences celebrating the upcoming holiday season.
Uche Onwubalili, a junior civil and environmental engineering major, has a present “in the moment” philosophy when it comes to the holidays.
Onwubalili said she feels people have become too accustomed to skipping fall.
“To go from Halloween to Christmas, I feel like that’s such a big jump,” Onwubalili said. “Like it’s still orange and the leaves are still here.”
If forced to choose between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Natalie LiVecchi, a junior astronomy and physics major, decided on the latter.
LiVecchi thinks of the holidays as something to look forward to while braving exams. “Mentally, I’m already celebrating,” she said, having just come from an exam.
Onwubalili understands the excitement for the holiday festivities, but thinks having time in between the celebrations is needed.
“I mean, it shows people’s love for the holidays,” she said. “It’s real, I get it, but give me some time.”
Though she loves Christmas, LiVecchi said her and her family like to give Thanksgiving its own time in the spotlight before December hits
This Thanksgiving will be the first time celebrating for Bram Zhang, a freshman mechanical engineering major from Hong Kong.
Zhang plans to spend the holiday with his roommate’s family and said he’s not quite sure what to expect — most of what he knows about Thanksgiving traditions is from television shows.
But to him, it feels like a long shot that mac and cheese will live up to dumplings and mooncakes, some of his favorites.
Zhang said that the American Thanksgiving celebration seems similar to the Mid-Autumn Festival in Chinese culture. He described spending quality time with his family for this celebration, as well as eating traditional foods such as mooncakes and dumplings.
“We just get together with our family too, because we miss each other,” Zhang said.
He said Christmas definitely wins over Thanksgiving.
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Onwubalili also stands behind this choice because it’s a bigger celebration in her family. But she’s not a fan of getting thrown into the holiday immediately after Halloween. The annual Mariah Carey Christmas advertisements starting to drop already is “too soon” in her opinion.
Onwubalili remembers holiday specials such as ABC Family’s “25 Days of Christmas”, which acted in the past as a time marker to countdown for the celebration. Now, she said, it seems monoculture is all but gone.
“[Now] no one’s on the same wavelength, everyone’s at their own pace,”she said.
Onwubalili attributes this to streaming platforms and the decline in cable television audiences. Speaking to a disconnect, LiVecchi has noticed changes in traditions like Black Friday: “I don’t see people knocking down storefronts anymore.”
Though Zhang is looking forward to travelling home for winter break, he is optimistic for his first Thanksgiving.
In true holiday spirit, he plans to contribute some tea to the table spread that his roommate’s English father will undoubtedly be thankful for.
