OK. Pumpkin season is officially over and now it’s Christmas.
Now, when you walk into a store in America, you’ll think you’ve stepped into Santa’s workshop with everything from peppermints, aisles of ornaments, pre-lit trees, inflatable snowmen and twinkling lights in your neighborhood that even Clark Griswold would be proud of.
But try to find a simple Thanksgiving decoration. A turkey, a harvest wreath, even a tablecloth with a thankfulness theme, and you practically need a search warrant. Somewhere between the cheap Halloween candy and the Black Friday promotional aisle, Thanksgiving has disappeared like a missing person.
And it’s not your imagination. Christmas is Thanksgiving and there are three big cultural and economic reasons for that.
Christmas shopping is taking over the Thanksgiving holiday. We can’t let that happen. (iStock)
1. Retailers make more money on Christmas than on gratitude
Let’s call this what it is: Thanksgiving just isn’t profitable enough.
Thanksgiving has stayed true to its old-fashioned identity of food, family, gratitude, naps and football. It’s emotional, but not commercial. You don’t buy matching pajamas for it. You don’t send greeting cards. Your children don’t demand a gift.
Retailers hate that.
On the other hand, Christmas is a revenue machine:
- Decor
- Lights
- Trees
- Electronics
- Travel
- Gifts
- Wrapping paper
- Holiday clothes
- Sweets
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First lady Melania Trump watches as President Donald Trump issues a presidential pardon to the National Thanksgiving Turkey “Corn” in the White House Rose Garden on November 24, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Thanksgiving decor could generate 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 his nice Snickers, the reindeer and wreaths appear. Not because Americans wanted it, but because stores can squeeze six weeks of extra turnover out of your holiday feeling.
If you’ve wondered why you can buy a 12-foot inflatable nutcracker before you can find a turkey placemat, now you know.
2. Black Friday has become the new Thanksgiving tradition
If you want to measure the cultural shift in this country, don’t look at the scenery, 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 started earlier on Friday morning. Then midnight. Then Thursday evening. Then Thursday afternoon.
Right now, the turkey isn’t even cold before people scan QR codes, check shopping apps and compare doorbusters that take place on Thanksgiving Day at 3 p.m.
Thanksgiving slowly moved from being a national break to becoming a national spending moment. Gratitude is replaced by the fear of missing out. And when the main purpose of the holiday is overshadowed by sales, the culture follows. The decorations don’t stand a chance.
The Thanksgiving decor could generate a few billion dollars. Christmas? Try hundreds of billions of dollars.
3. America is more stressed than ever, and Christmas is an escape hatch
Thanksgiving is about reflection. Christmas is about escapism.
One demands that we stick with what we have, while the other invites us to wrap life in light, nostalgia, sugar cookies and some old-fashioned instant gratification.
In a year when inflation is squeezing families, housing costs are exorbitant and more than half of Americans say they are living paycheck to paycheck, people are reaching for anything that brings comfort, even if that means dragging out the Christmas bins before the pumpkins rot.
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Christmas is warm, nostalgic and sparkling. Thanksgiving is quiet, reflective and slow, three things modern America can no longer tolerate.
An image of early settlers of the Plymouth Colony sharing a Thanksgiving harvest meal with members of the local Wampanoag tribe in Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1621. (Frederic Lewis/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Why this actually matters in 2025
Some people will shrug their shoulders and say, “What’s the big deal? They’re just decorations.”
But I think it goes deeper. Thanksgiving is not political. It’s purely American.
Thanksgiving is the one holiday uniquely designed 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, something we desperately need in a world that constantly tells us we’re behind.
If we let Thanksgiving disappear and be replaced by 60 days of Christmas promotions and artificial urgency, we will lose a holiday that strengthens the financial and emotional health of families.
A country that forgets how to be grateful ultimately forgets how to be grounded.
Bring back Turkey season
Look, I love Christmas. I’m not the Grinch. But we can enjoy Christmas without erasing Thanksgiving.
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So this year, don’t let retailers rush you past that one holiday where no one asks you to spend money, buy things you don’t need, or dig your way into even more holiday debt.
Christmas is warm, nostalgic and sparkling. Thanksgiving is quiet, reflective and slow, three things modern America can no longer tolerate.
To sit. To eat. Conversation. 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.
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