stuff is cool

Thanksgiving is suddenly almost upon us! I hate how autumn and winter fly by but spring and summer (mostly summer) drag on forever. I am not sure how I can still feel like the holidays fly by when the rest of the word starts the season a full month before I do. Merchants had their Christmas decorations and displays up the week of Halloween.

Now, I LOVE Christmas. I love everything about it. I love decorating, shopping for gifts, cooking, watching Christmas movies, listening to Christmas carols, etc. But I will not start doing those things until the day after Thanksgiving! Or maybe Thanksgiving Day. Even though I have been running into holiday stuff left and right for weeks, I have fought it off enough that when I do officially greet The Season, it will be all the richer and sweeter. You start doing Christmas too early and it gets really watered down.

Some people go to the other extreme. In Olden Days, sometimes Santa brought the tree along with the gifts. Or the tree was set up only on Christmas eve. This makes sense due to the fire hazards they were, what with being decorated with dozens of open flames and all! In any case, some folks out there don’t celebrate The Season, they celebrate the day.

Obviously, I prefer the happy medium. 4 weeks of Christmas is just enough time to build up the excitement and celebration, savoring each tradition one by one. It may start with an impulse purchase of Christmas Oreos with red and green icing, then lighting holiday scented candles, then decorating, etc. etc. until Christmas is everywhere, exciting all of your senses.

I think the timing of holidays is perfect. We build excitement for a month, then have wonderful wonderful Christmas, with the week afterward acting as the denoument, and, just in time, New Years is a solid bookend (paired with Thanksgiving.)