Christmas taking a bite out of Thanksgiving as retailers prioritize profits

OK. Pumpkin season is officially over and now it’s Christmas time.

Walk into any store in America right now and you’ll think you’ve stepped into Santa’s workshop, with all things peppermint candy in your neighborhood, aisles full of ornaments, pre-lit trees, inflatable snowmen and twinkling lights that even Clark Griswold would be proud of.

But try finding a simple Thanksgiving decoration. All you need is a turkey, a harvest wreath, even a gratitude-themed tablecloth, and almost a search warrant. Somewhere between discounted Halloween candy and the Black Friday promotion aisle, Thanksgiving has vanished like a missing person.

And it’s not your imagination. Christmas is quickly moving ahead with Thanksgiving, and there are three big cultural and economic reasons for this.

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1. Retailers make more money from Christmas sales than gratitude

Let’s call it this: Thanksgiving isn’t snowy enough.

Thanksgiving has stayed true to its old-school identity of food, family, gratitude, candy, and football. Emotional but not commercial. That’s not why you buy matching pajamas. You don’t send greeting cards. Your children do not demand gift wrapping.

Retailers hate this.

Christmas, on the other hand, is a revenue machine:

• Decor
• lights
• trees
• Electronic
• Trip
• gifts
• Wrapping paper
• holiday clothes
• Sugar

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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 annual event in the White House Rose Garden on November 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Thanksgiving decor can bring in several billion dollars. Christmas? Try hundreds of billions of dollars.

Stores don’t even pretend anymore. As soon as the last trick-or-treater gets their fun-sized Snickers, reindeers and garlands appear. Not because Americans want it, but because stores can squeeze an extra six weeks of revenue from your holiday spirit.

If you ever wondered why you could buy a 12-foot inflatable nutcracker before finding the 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 decor, just examine the behavior.

Twenty years ago, Thanksgiving was sacred. Now? It’s basically the pregame show for Black Friday, when some stores open on Thanksgiving.

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Retailers have done a masterful job of convincing Americans that holiday shopping is a holiday. Black Friday was starting on Friday morning. Then midnight. Then on Thursday evening. Then Thursday afternoon.

Türkiye isn’t even cooling down at this point as people scan QR codes, check store apps, and compare the “doorbusters” that happen at 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

Gradually, Thanksgiving became less of a moment of national pause and more of a moment of national spending. Gratitude is replaced by fear of missing out. When the true purpose of the holiday is overshadowed by sales, the culture follows suit. Decorations don’t stand a chance.

Thanksgiving decor can bring in several billion dollars. Christmas? Try hundreds of billions of dollars.

3. America is more stressed than ever and Christmas is an escape

Thanksgiving is about reflection. Christmas is about escape.

While one asks us to sit with what we have, the other invites us to narrate life with lights, nostalgia, sugar cookies and old-fashioned instant pleasures.

In a year when inflation is squeezing families, housing costs are skyrocketing, and more than half of Americans say they are living paycheck to paycheck, people are embracing anything that brings comfort, even if it means lugging around Christmas boxes before the pumpkins rot.

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Christmas is warm, nostalgic and bright. Thanksgiving is quiet, thoughtful, and slow; These are three things that modern America has forgotten how to tolerate.

Depiction of early settlers of the Plymouth Colony sharing a harvest Thanksgiving meal with members of the local Wampanoag tribe at the Plymouth Plantation, Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1621. (Photo: Frederic Lewis/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Why does this actually matter in 2025?

Some people will shrug their shoulders and say: “Who cares? They’re just decorations.”

But I think it’s deeper. Thanksgiving is not political. All-American.

Thanksgiving is the one holiday uniquely designed to pause, reconnect, and recalibrate us. No gifts. No costume. There is no commercial agenda. It’s a 24-hour reminder that what we already have is enough, which is something 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 promotions 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 Türkiye Season

Look, I love Christmas time. I’m not the Grinch. But we can enjoy Christmas without writing off Thanksgiving.

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So this year, don’t let retailers rush you through the holidays when no one wants you to spend money, buy things you don’t need, or rack up more holiday debt.

Christmas is warm, nostalgic and bright. Thanksgiving is quiet, thoughtful, and slow; These are three things that modern America has forgotten how to tolerate.

To sit. To eat. To talk. 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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