It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Halloween is over, and it’s time for dyed-in-the-wool Christmas enthusiasts to start putting up their loud, obnoxious Christmas decorations.

The day after Halloween, every grocery store will have the Halloween candy and decorations in the half-off bin and the shelves stocked with Christmas decorations. The brown, yellow, and orange M&M’s will be replaced with white, red, and green. The skeletons, witches, and black cats have been replaced with Mr. & Mrs. Claus and Rudolph.

Yet not all students are thrilled about the sudden transition into this holiday’s spirit.

Ariel Shilitz (’15) said, “It’s ridiculous that people who celebrate Christmas put up lights around the outside of their house and on their Christmas tree because Hanukah is the festival  of lights and, therefore, people who celebrate Hanukah should be the ones putting the lights up.”

Santa aficionados can now look forward to long days of holiday shopping, crawling through mall parking lots looking for a spot that is so far from the stores that busses should be required to transport people there. But it’s not that bad – while sitting in the car for hours, listeners can tune into catchy Christmas songs on their favorite radio station.

That’s right – it’s odd to find an old favorite radio station, which all year long plays songs by people that are still breathing, and replace them with songs by people who have been dead for more than 60 years. And for those who are feeling lucky may get to hear the soothing sounds of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

After worrying all year about saving energy, going green, and complaining about electric bills on Christmas, none of that seems to matter when the house with the most lights wins. In fact, keeping the lights on all night long is a neat idea because no one wants to miss that small chance that, at three a.m., somebody will notice how breathtaking the house is.

Some people might want to express their enthusiasm towards Christmas through their decorations. F. Timothy Mountain agrees and then goes on to say: “I don’t really care. I think people can put out decorations for whatever they want, anytime they want. Heck, if you wanna put up Easter decorations on Groundhog’s day, go right ahead.”

It truly is a wonderful life.