Less than a week after Halloween and stores have already started playing Christmas music, putting up trees and having Christmas sales.

The holiday season can be an exciting time of year, with Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but often times people like to skip over Thanksgiving once Halloween is over.

It’s understandable; Christmas means gifts, family time, delicious cookies and most importantly, break. But it doesn’t need this much preparation.

This season, so far, Erie has had one small snowfall. While it’s sure to have many more for months and months after Christmas, we should still appreciate what we have left of the fall season and the Thanksgiving holiday.

Plus with Black Friday sales starting at 6 p.m. the day before now, Thanksgiving has already been cut short by those who want to get a jump on gift shopping.

Some people have a lot of friends and family to buy gifts for, so they want to save a couple of bucks anyway they can. However, this practice has cut into a lot of family time that many people don’t get through the year.

This is just another way that Christmas has cut into another holiday.

Thanksgiving isn’t just a time to stuff your face with delicious food. It’s a time to sit back, not think about everything you worry over on a daily basis and just reflect on what you’re thankful for in life.

Whether it’s friends, family, your dog Spike or your XBox One, most of us are thankful for something.

So this holiday season, please hold off on Christmas music and the tree and other decorations until the day after Thanksgiving.