Oh, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. That’s right – we are in that beautiful time of the year where we get to experience all of those amazing winter holidays. Starting with Thanksgiving, a holiday centered around joining together with many of our near and far family members, all the way to Christmas, Channukah, Kwanza, and New Year’s.
For many of us, the opportunity to see our family members and enjoy great food brings out the best of us, but unfortunately, this time of year can also carry with it many negative feelings. Not everyone has the best relationship with their family and not everyone is happy to see some people that they are biologically related to. For many of us, when we are thrown into an environment with people we disagree with or dislike, we are left in many hostile situations. People often find themselves turning to alcohol or other substances in order to ease their tensions and find a release. Many of these hostile situations begin with snide comments that turn into larger arguments that can sometimes become violent.
While the winter months may not be the time of year with the highest crime rates, it can definitely be argued that we see a spike in violence during the winter holiday season. From theft to shootings, we see that some individuals turn to deviance during a time of year that should be filled with joy.
Everyone knows the day after Thanksgiving is known as Black-Friday or “the best time to buy all your Christmas gifts since everything is on sale…”. Not only can you find great deals everywhere, but you can find your fair share of people getting aggressive with others in the store, fighting over items, stealing things from other people’s carts, and getting in physical altercations with complete strangers. The weekend of Black-Friday shopping brings about the perfect environment for crime and deviance to occur. Because we see so many people out taking advantage of the sales, we see more people out there who can either be a perpetrator of violence or the victim of it. The overflow of buyers in many stores allows people to find clever ways to steal things, often walking out of the store without paying for everything they wish to bring home with them.
Then, we have a few weeks until we find ourselves back in those family gatherings, sitting around a Christmas tree, eating food, drinking alcohol, and trading gifts. This is where we get back into those hostile family situations that we might have found ourselves in during Thanksgiving. While many people may not realize that the winter holiday season brings about a great deal of crime and deviance, if you do a simple Google search, you see things like:
Winter Holiday Safety Tips
Most Common Crimes Over the Winter Holidays; and
Understanding the Reality of Holiday Related Crime
It is important to understand that when we have tension filled situations combined with alcohol or other substances, we often find that those situations end in violence and blood. We see people turning on their family members and taking out their anger on those that are related to them. Sadly, we see many people seeking refuge at hospitals in order to escape violence and patch up any injuries they may have. If you're thinking to yourself "there's no way people shoot their family members because they get into a fight during the holiday season", just do a quick search and count how many articles you find about a winter family get-together becoming violent.
Let us all try to remember one thing – Even if you may love the winter holiday season, always keep your guard up while out shopping and be kind towards others because you never know what anxieties the holiday season brings out.
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