By Caitlin Roy
Round Table reporter

Old Saint Nick and Christmas comes early this year in convenient stores.

With Thanksgiving around the corner and Halloween just ending, it seems sudden to see Christmas decorations on the shelves and Halloween decorations back in the store warehouses.

“I think it is to get people to start thinking about Christmas and to start to buy gifts and decorations,” said Sarah Spiegel, Middletown High School junior.

Santa Claus figurines now take the place of Halloween trappings, and Thanksgiving seems to be oddly forgotten. Customers have to search through Christmas items to find anything relating to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Marian Richards, a store shopper said, “I wonder if it is because merchandisers have a hard time capitalizing on the simple act of giving thanks. People need nothing more than a grateful heart to celebrate the day.”

The holiday was established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, during the Civil War, to celebrate the friendship between the pilgrims and the Indians, who helped the pilgrims, survive and give rise to the colony that eventually became our founding fathers.

It is sad that Thanksgiving seems to get lost between the commercialism of Halloween and Christmas. That our society is so busy buying and selling that we have become so commercial to the fact that this significant act of friendship has slowly dwindled into nothing and that there is no time for giving thanks to those from who we are founded.