Christmas stuff shouldn't go up until after Thanksgiving. It distracts from Thanksgiving, which is far and away the holiday I most enjoy.
I disagree with the coercion, but not the sentiment. Let folks enjoy the turkey and trimmings before bombarding them with the rank commercialism and exhibitionism that Christmas has become.
It should come as no surprise that my favorite Christmas program is A Charlie Brown Christmas.
My mother had a strict rule, one that still carries on in my family - no Christmas decorations or Christmas music, or Christmas TV shows or movies until after Santa makes his appearance at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Not that we stopped doing Thanksgiving, by that time the Turkey had only just gone into the oven, or decorated or played Christmas music until the day after but it could absolutely be no sooner. Santa at the end of the Macy’s parade marked the “official†start of Christmas in our family. OK. My Catholic mother taught us it was the start of Advent but that didn’t mean we couldn’t start celebrating before then.
It was also my mother’s tradition that the Thanksgiving turkey could not go into the oven until after us kids, and later her grandkids, after thoroughly washing their hands before and after of course, gave the turkey a good pat for good luck. I have no idea where that started but I carried that on when I for years hosted Thanksgiving and my nieces and nephews and later their kids where at my house.
One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving, aside from all the cooking that I used to enjoy and the family gatherings at my house, although it exhausted me, was and still is the leftover turkey sandwiches.
Since my divorce and my downsizing and now living with a roommate who works for Amazon and will be working on Thanksgiving and I no longer host family Thanksgiving dinners, and even when I go to my niece’s for Thanksgiving dinner, I will still make a turkey and some trimmings for myself and now also for my roommate just so I and now she can have that perfect leftover turkey sandwich – on thick sour dough bread, cranberry sauce on one side, mayo and salt and pepper on the other, turkey of course but also a slice of some good Swiss cheese and a layer of sausage stuffing. Nom! Nom! A jar of olives and I’m in heaven.
I will not go out shopping on Black Friday, in fact will avoid leaving the house at all costs, but will instead enjoy my favorite sandwich and binge watch some movies and start my online Christmas shopping in the comfort of my couch and in some comfy and necessarily very stretchy clothes.
The holiday creep starts earlier and earlier. Independence Day starts the “back to school†sales, Labor Day is when Halloween starts, no sooner is the Halloween stuff moved to the clearance rack is it Christmas merchandise all over. I was radio channel surfing in the car on my way to work today and several stations have gone to the 24-7 Christmas music mode.
I’m not religious but I love, absolutely love Christmas, but unfortunately by a week or so before Christmas, I’m mostly done. If it were up to me, the first day of Spring would be January 2nd.
I too love Charlie Brown Christmas and the album of the music is also a favorite of mine. I also have a tradition of watching the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol, the one with Alistair Sims, and it’s got to be in black and white, late on Christmas Eve, just before I go to bed.
But as far as starting “early†what really “frosts†me is the people who leave their Christmas decorations up too long, and I mean way too long.
If it were up to me, rather than those who decorate a bit early, there would be an increasingly harsh scale of punishment for people who leave their outdoor Christmas decorations well up after New Year’s, well after the 12 Days of Christmas is over. An exception would be made of course for Orthodox Christians who celebrate Christmas on January 7th but here’s my plan.
If you still have your Christmas decorations up by Valentine’s Day – it’s a $500 fine and a $1,000 fine for every inflatable Christmas lawn ornament still up with an additional $500 fine for each if they are still inflated and lit.
If you still have your Christmas decorations up by St. Patrick’s Day - it’s a $5,00 fine and up to a year in jail and if you are still displaying them, a life time ban on ever purchasing or displaying inflatable Christmas lawn ornaments. Additionally, if you have such poor taste to have put up one of those Star Shower Lazers and still have it on, you know the ones that make your house, and sometimes also your next door neighbor’s house (and you know who you are) look like what would happen if a unicorn while high on LSD projectile vomited Skittles on an endless loop from dusk to dawn, you forever lose your right to vote.
If you still have your Christmas decorations up by Good Friday – in addition to the above, it’s a $10,000 additional fine for each display and for each and every light and life in prison with no chance of parole.
Finally, if you still have your outdoor Christmas decorations up by Mother’s Day, you will be hung, drawn and quartered in the public square, your children and your children’s children will spend their lives in indentured servitude while dressed 24-7 as Christmas Elves, your house will be demolished and all its contents burned in a great bon fire dedicated to Saturn and the rights of Saturnalia, the property sealed off with concrete barriers and barbed wire, and the earth salted so nothing ever grows there again.
Merry Christmas! (If it’s not too early to say so) : )
