“There’s a time and season for everything,” I told my wife, paraphrasing the often quoted verses of Ecclesiastes. We were discussing how quickly our friends were moving on from Halloween to the Christmas season, and I couldn’t help but feel like we were missing the Thanksgiving hype. This year it seemed like when the clock striked midnight on Nov. 1, the Halloween pumpkins and cobwebs transformed into Christmas trees and tinsel.

People embraced Halloween this year with all the typical excitement that the beginning of autumn brings. Pumpkin spice lattes ushered in the season several weeks ago with the annual hype finally reaching its peak last Friday. The National Retail Federation estimates Americans spent $6.9 billion on Halloween in 2015, which is actually down from the $7.4 billion in 2014. Halloween is one of those holidays where the business sector has found a way to profit greatly, so it only makes sense that we’re feeling an increasing rush from Halloween to Christmas every year.

There’s always been 54 days between two of the most profitable holidays of the year, but the gap closes more each year as people increase their jolly celebrations and businesses find news ways to grow revenues. This does come at a cost, however: Thanksgiving. Shoved between the two of the most profitable holidays, Thanksgiving begins to exist only as a gatekeeper to Christmas that we’re increasingly climbing over. Every year we learn of holiday sales starting earlier. People continue to complain about Black Friday shopping beginning on Thursday, and this year will be no exception. Just earlier this week I saw a headline stating that Amazon.com was beginning to reveal Black Friday deals already. I guess it’s time to start planning what we want for Christmas since Halloween has officially passed.

I’m fine with people shopping and getting deals, but I wish we could spend a little more time living in the moment. What if we treated the days and weeks leading up to Thanksgiving as a time to actually reflect what we’re thankful for in our lives? We spend weeks prepping for Halloween and Christmas, but it’s pretty easy for us to flash forward through these next few weeks without much thought around thankfulness. I wonder what would happen if we changed that.

Last week I encountered a fascinating study from the University of Georgia about the power of thank you. Married couples that express gratitude with each other are more likely to view their marriage favorably. In fact, expression of gratitude was the highest predictor of martial quality compared with financial well-being and communication.

“It goes to show the power of ‘thank you,” said the study’s lead author Allen Barton, a former doctoral student in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and current postdoctoral research associate at UGA’s Center for Family Research. “Even if a couple is experiencing distress and difficulty in other areas, gratitude in the relationship can help promote positive marital outcomes.”

Researchers also noted that expressing thanks can actually counteract negative behaviors and communication occurring in a relationship. Expressing how you’re thankful for your partner can have a much more powerful effect than we imagined. I can’t help but wonder what would happen to relationships if couples purposefully started to appreciate one another more. It certainly wouldn’t solve all problems, but being intentional with your gratitude could certainly make an impact.

I’d love to hypothesize that this research goes even beyond marriage. Wouldn’t all relationships be better if everyone shared their thanks more often? Think of your friends, family members, and co-workers. We could all be doing more to express our gratitude. That’s what I want us to be doing in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.

We’re lucky enough to have a few weeks to think about one holiday: Thanksgiving. Let’s use this time to daily choose to say thank you to someone we care about. Sometimes we gloss over this holiday of thanks simply because it isn’t as shiny as the holidays that surround it, but there’s a reason for the season between Halloween and Christmas, too.

 

Rochester resident Matt Knutson is the communications and events director for United Way of Olmsted County.