We’ve all been there. You’re browsing through the store on Nov. 1 and you suddenly hear the faint echo of “Oh Santa” by Mariah Carey. Everyone has one of two apparent reactions: you either scream for joy at the upcoming holiday season, or groan at the prospect of fanatics skipping past Thanksgiving.

The holidays throughout December are undoubtedly widely anticipated. If I took a poll of everyone’s favorite holidays in this school, I could guess that most of them would take place during the winter. This could be caused by the abnormal amount of religious holidays throughout this period of time. There’s Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas just to name the main few.

As an anticipator of this time, I’m all for this holiday pregame such as the decorations popping up in grocery stores, traditional winter music and holiday movies coming out on Hallmark. Some people pull a Scrooge and are humbugs about early celebrations.

Anti-pregamers are, from what I can tell, mainly concerned about the downplay of Thanksgiving’s importance. It’s understandable that they would feel this way considering that Black Friday happens the day consecutively after it, which takes away from its attention. This holiday was originally made to celebrate the alliance between the pilgrims and Native Americans. Now, its main focus is family, food and what you’re thankful for. I would argue that Thanksgiving gets enough attention with the hugely annual Macy’s Day parade and an entire week off of school for a single day.

The winter holidays are, in general, slightly more acknowledged than others. This is because of the sheer amount of them there are. It seems everyone has something to celebrate. One of them even has their own mascot, Santa. It seems every mainstream artist comes out with Holiday music, every brand comes out with holiday themed clothes and decorations and every movie network comes out with holiday movies, most notably made as a Hallmark movie cliche. With all of these used as reasons to prolong the holidays, it makes sense.

So, as the season goes on, and you hear “Oh Santa” by Mariah Carey every place you go, I urge you to think about why the celebrations come so early.