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OK. Pumpkin season is officially over and now it’s Christmas time.
Walk into any store in America now and you’ll think you’re in Santa’s workshop with all things peppermint, aisles full of ornaments, lighted trees, inflatable snowmen and twinkling lights in your neighborhood that would make even Clark Griswold proud.
But try to find some simple Thanksgiving decorations. A turkey, a harvest wreath, even a gratitude-themed tablecloth, and you practically need a search warrant. Somewhere between the discount Halloween candy and that Black Friday In the promo aisle, Thanksgiving has disappeared like a missing person.
And it’s not your imagination. Christmas is overtaking Thanksgiving and there are three big cultural and economic reasons why.
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Christmas shopping is taking over the Thanksgiving holiday. We can’t allow that. (iStock)
1. Retailers make more money selling Christmas than giving thanks
Let’s put it this way: Thanksgiving just isn’t profitable enough.
Thanksgiving remains true to its time-honored identity of food, family, gratitude, naps and football. It’s emotional but not commercial. You can’t buy matching pajamas for this. They don’t send greeting cards. Your children don’t ask for gifts.
Retailers hate this.
On the other hand, Christmas is a sales machine:
- decor
- lights
- trees
- electronics
- Travel
- Gifts
- Wrapping paper
- Holiday clothing
- sweets
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First Lady Melania Trump (R) watches as President Donald Trump grants a presidential pardon to the national Thanksgiving turkey “Corn” during the traditional event in the Rose Garden of the White House on November 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Thanksgiving decorations could bring in a few billion dollars. Christmas? Try hundreds of billions of dollars.
Stores don’t even pretend anymore. The moment the last trick-or-treater grabs their fun-sized Snickers, out come the reindeer and the wreaths. Not because Americans wanted it, but because stores can squeeze six extra weeks of sales out of your holiday spirit.
If you’ve been wondering why you can buy a 12-foot inflatable nutcracker before finding a turkey placemat, now you know.
2. Black Friday has become the new Thanksgiving tradition
If you want to measure cultural change in this country, don’t look at the institution, just examine the behavior.
Twenty years ago, Thanksgiving was sacred. Now? It’s basically the pregame show for Black Friday, with some stores actually opening on Thanksgiving.
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Retailers have done a masterful job of convincing Americans that holiday shopping is a holiday. Black Friday used to start on Friday morning. Then midnight. Then Thursday evening. Then Thursday afternoon.
At this point, the turkey isn’t even cold yet and people are already scanning QR codes, checking store apps and comparing “door openers” that take place at 3 p.m on Thanksgiving Day.
Thanksgiving gradually ceased to be a national moment of pause and became a national moment of spending. Gratitude is replaced by the fear of missing out. And when the main purpose of the holiday is eclipsed by sales, culture follows. The decorations don’t stand a chance.
Thanksgiving decorations could bring in a few billion dollars. Christmas? Try hundreds of billions of dollars.
3. America is more stressed than ever and Christmas is a way out
Thanksgiving is about reflection. Christmas is about escapism.
One demands that we sit with what we have, while the other invites us to cover life with lights, nostalgia, sugar cookies, and good old-fashioned instant gratification.
In a year when inflation is squeezing families, housing costs are outrageously high and more than half of Americans report living paycheck to paycheck, people are turning to anything that brings comfort, even if it means hauling out the holiday bins before the pumpkins rot.
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Christmas is warm, nostalgic and sparkling. Thanksgiving is quiet, thoughtful and slow, three things that modern America has forgotten how to tolerate.
A depiction of early settlers of the Plymouth Colony sharing a harvest feast with members of the local Wampanoag tribe at Plymouth Plantation, Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. (Photo by Frederic Lewis/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Why this actually matters in 2025
Some people will shrug their shoulders and say, “Who cares? It’s just decoration.”
But I think it goes deeper than that. Thanksgiving is not political. It’s purely American.
Thanksgiving is the only holiday meant to make us pause, reconnect, and recalibrate. There are no gifts. No costumes. No commercial agenda. It’s a 24-hour reminder that what we already have is enough, what we desperately need in a world that constantly tells us we’re behind.
If we allow Thanksgiving to disappear and be replaced by 60 days of Christmas advertising and artificial urgency, we will lose a holiday that strengthens the financial and emotional health of families.
A country that forgets to be grateful will eventually forget to be grounded.
Bring back turkey season
Look, I love the Christmas season. I’m not the Grinch. But we can enjoy Christmas without neglecting Thanksgiving.
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So this year, don’t let retailers bully you into the one holiday where no one is asking you to spend money, buy things you don’t need, or pave your way into more holiday debt.
Christmas is warm, nostalgic and sparkling. Thanksgiving is quiet, thoughtful and slow, three things that modern America has forgotten how to tolerate.
Sit. Eat. Speak. Watch football. Take a nap. Be grateful.
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And proudly display a turkey or two.
It’s time to bring back Thanksgiving.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM TED JENKIN