Most major holidays have a season: at least one month dedicated to preparation for and celebration of the holiday. Year after year, though, there is one holiday that gets passed up, thrown to the side as if it was nothing. Right after the Jack-O-Lanterns are left to rot, right after parents confiscate the bursting pillow sacks of off-brand candy, right after cheap Party City costumes are put up for the year, right after Halloween, Christmastime blows into town.

The swift movement from Halloween to Christmastime is one that clearly represents America’s capitalistic greed manifesting itself into commercialization of the holiday season. Now, I love Target around Christmastime as much as anyone else does. The green and red lights are super pretty, the Christmas music is definitely jolly, and the discounted holiday candy is always accepted. However, we’ve seemed to gloss over the holiday with the most meaning.

Thanksgiving is about being grateful for the people in your life who love you, and being grateful for the things you have. In the rush from Halloween to Christmas, parents and kids get so caught up in buying the perfect presents and costumes and decorations (the list goes on and on), that the whole meaning of the holiday season becomes lost. The meaning of the holidays is to slow down, smell the roses, and be grateful for all the good fortune that has allowed you to be in the moment, celebrating with loved ones.

And besides: how could you forget about the turkey, the stuffing, and the Macy’s Parade? Not to mention eating as much as your heart desires.

“It’s unfortunate that Thanksgiving has just kind of turned into the day before Black Friday,” senior Andrew Friedman said. “The one day that’s supposed to be about being mindful and grateful has turned into a prep-and-fuel day for the biggest fraud of a holiday Black Friday the world has ever seen.”

Thanksgiving should be just as celebrated by society as Halloween and Christmas. There are many things to be thankful for during November, one of the biggest being piles of food on Thanksgiving Day. Too often, people forget this thankfulness in an effort to bring Christmas into their homes much sooner than the season. “There should be plastic turkeys and pilgrim dolls instead of fake Christmas trees and reindeers right now,” senior Chris Peters said.

The next time you’re walking into the mall or a Target or a Walmart on a fine November — note I said November — morning, peak Thanksgiving season, and you see a plastic Santa’s devil eyes boring into you, bash it aside in honor of the turkey. There is only one holiday in November, and it is Thanksgiving.