I recently read an interesting bit of trivia. The movie Dawn of the Dead, released in 1978, was largely filmed in the Monroeville Mall in Pennsylvania. Production was halted for a three week period in December, when the mall was unusable due to the expense of removing the Christmas decorations during the night's shoot.
The trivia is not so much interesting because of the production intricacies of the film, but because of the time period involved. The Christmas promotions were a problem for only three weeks, which seems like an incredibly small amount of time compared to the usual length of Christmas promotions. In fact, all promotions have gone on a somewhat protracted schedule. This year, I saw "Back to School" signs before the school year was even finished, as though the idea of a back to school event was focused firmly on the idea of just going back after the weekend. The idea of extending shopping events has taken hold, if three weeks is good, then a couple months must be better.
Many people complain about this, but now that I think about it, I kind of like the increasing expansion of each holiday season. I like it not because I want it to be Christmas every day, as though I'm living in a low-budget Hallmark channel original, but instead because each holiday has their own little specific specialty, and by the relentless expansion of the season, we are afforded the opportunity to experience those little specialties for more of the year.
I like mandarin oranges and egg nogg, two things that are now available for months instead of just in December. I don't know if I want them in the summer - egg nogg does seem like it would be kind of stomach churning in the middle of some thirty degree heat - but I do want them for more than a single month, and the increased length of the Christmas season means that they're available for an increasingly long period of time. It gives one extra time to enjoy a good thing.
It's the same with those other holidays, they all have their specific attractions that are only available for that small part of the year, and I like those attractions. I admit that in some cases, I don't want to have too many more months of those products. The tiny eggs that become popular at Easter only fill one with regret and chocolate, and then you need a year to forget that it was a terrible idea to eat so many. My personal distaste for Hallowe'en also makes me reluctant to embrace any expansion the orange-tinted macabre that explodes every year. I could complain about the extended Back to School promotion as well, but it also means cheap pens, so I'll let that one slide.
The thing is, while I know plenty of people complain about how holidays are drawn out, I've come to the realization that I'm not entirely against it. Sure, extending it out too far drains the celebration of meaning, but I have to break from the crowd that suggests this is always a bad thing. The extension doesn't make the holiday less meaningful on a personal level, it just means that we get more time to enjoy some of the fruits of the season - in some cases, the actual, literal fruits.
That said, I wonder what it would be like to have a Christmas season last for a mere three weeks.
