are too. Holiday tunes have already been playing through the sound systems of America’s biggest department stores, and we haven’t even been given the chance to give thanks for what we already have.

Along with the holiday trimmings, stores have flooded our senses, announcing their openings on Thanksgiving Day as early as 5 p.m. Two women in Beaumont, California are already camping outside of a Best Buy —  22 days in advance, according to cleveland.com.

But the reason these stores open so early and offer so many deals is that consumers ask for them, showing up year after year to bust down the doors. If we, as consumers, will arrive, the stores will provide. Keeping up with the amount of saving and spending becomes a second job — maybe a third if you work at one of these advance shopping depots.

We all know that the endless cycle of consumerism society has adopted is toxic. Retail employees, many of them college students, have to work a seven-hour Thursday night shift starting at 5 p.m., missing their families’ Thanksgiving dinners. The exhausting hours on Black Friday, and now Thanksgiving, accommodate more shoppers for the heads of these huge companies to make more money. But it comes at the expense of the lives of their consumers, whether it comes from a company’s employees or obsessed and sometimes rude shoppers who just want to get the deals.

As much as we all complain about it, it will not end until people put their consumeristic tendencies in check. Keep your spending in perspective. As the holiday approaches, weigh what means more: spending an hour in line waiting to buy your mom a sought-after bag or spending an hour with her helping her prepare a Christmas dinner for your family. Put everything in moderation in the coming months except the true meaning of the holiday season.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the The Kent Stater editorial board, whose names are listed above.