I know there is a lot of controversy over the question: When should you start celebrating Christmas? Is it midnight on Nov. 1? Halfway through November? As soon as Thanksgiving dinner is over? No one really knows. Everyone has their own opinion on Christmas decorations, and it creates a lot of tension right around “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
Personally, I choose to celebrate Christmas year-round. Sounds pretty crazy, right? But there are just so many reasons why I choose to do so. Who doesn’t love warm, homemade Christmas cookies that always seem to lift your spirits? Or maybe sometimes you just need to hear a peppy Christmas song to get you through that next exam. The glittering tinsel and lights on the tree that makes you feel right at home, even if you are so far away. And besides, some years there’s just not enough time to decorate specifically for the designated “Christmas Season.” I grew up traveling during the holidays; one set of grandparents lived in Wisconsin, the other in Maryland, whereas I lived in Pennsylvania. We had this rotation: Thanksgiving in Maryland and Christmas in Wisconsin. The next year it would switch and we would celebrate Thanksgiving in Wisconsin and Christmas in Maryland. Sure, we still decorated for the holidays, I remember watching my parents struggle to hang all those lights on the house and smelling the fresh baked cookies my mom and I had just cut out into little gingerbread men and Christmas trees. But we never fit that “cookie-cutter” mold of when to decorate for Christmas; it was impossible for us. By the time we got back to our own house from Thanksgiving, we would have approximately three weeks before we’d have to leave for Christmas, and by the time we got back home again, it was already New Years and everything was “supposed” to be put away. My family decided to leave up decorations and keep the Christmas season alive for however long we wanted. I distinctly remember one year where we put up the Christmas tree as soon as we got the Halloween decorations down, and then left the tree up until my mom’s birthday in late February.
(Image: Author’s Own)
Not to make Thanksgiving less of a holiday, it’s a great time to visit family and eat some of my favorite foods–homemade apple crisp, am I right?–but there’s something about the Christmas season that never fails to make me smile. I just don’t know what it is; maybe it’s just the general happiness that everyone feels, talks of peace and goodwill towards men. Universal peace, thinking of others first as you struggle to find the perfect gift for that special someone; everyone just seems to be happier in December.
I’ve heard arguments that Christmas is all about the consumers or receiving gifts. Sure, we can note that producers start encouraging spending for the holiday season starting in October, but there’s so much more than that. It’s like as Dr. Seuss said in those famous words from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, “Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more.” Christmas is more than just receiving gifts, it’s about unity, love, joy and hope. Christmas is for finding out what we truly cherish in life, and making others feel as happy as they make us feel year-round. Christmas brings out the best in people, and I can’t help but want to feel that kind of happiness that only the holiday season brings all the time.
We dream of Christmas year-round, so why not live it year-round, too?