So, ever since I was young, I was always taught that you did not decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. However, this year I decided to switch things up a bit.
Since before Halloween, I could not go into Micheal's, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, Target or any other store for that matter without seeing snowmen, Christmas trees, ornaments, or candy canes. So, since Corporate America seems to be in the holiday mood, why shouldn't I be?
With everything negative going on in the world, everyone could use a little Christmas cheer. Politics dividing the nation, wars going on all over the world, etc. Everyone could use something to believe in, and what's better than Christmas?
Every time you turn on the TV there are Hallmark Christmas movies, and every time you turn the radio on, jingle bells and silent night stream through the sound waves. You can try to ignore it, but holiday cheer is in our cars and living rooms and we can't deny it.
If we go ahead and get decorating out of the way, that's less to do in the month of December. We all know December consists of exams, visiting family, traveling and food, so we will have more time to do these things if we go and get the tree up and the stockings up.
I am a planner, so I typically start shopping for Christmas presents in October. I know it's early, but being a college student on a budget, I have to space it out. Since I am already Christmas shopping, why not go ahead and decorate to help further motivate me?
To go along with buying presents early, you have to have somewhere to put all of the wrapped presents as you buy them, so why not go ahead and have your Christmas tree up so you can put them under it and not have to move them around.
When I put out Christmas decorations, I usually dust and vacuum the house as well. With the house clean and the pretty lights and decorations out, the house always looks so much better when we have guests over for the Thanksgiving holidays.
Decorating for Christmas usually takes a while and is a pretty thorough process. Why would you want to put in all that work and then only leave the decorations up for a little over a month. Having them up from the beginning of November to after New Year's makes me feel a little better about the amount of work that goes into putting them up and taking them down.
Although I love Thanksgiving, there really is no way to decorate for it. I mean sure you can set a cornucopia on your dining room table and put a few turkey or pilgrim figurines out, but you just can't decorate for Thanksgiving like you can for Halloween or Christmas, so you're really not taking away from the holiday.
Christmas is infectious. It's the one time of year that you can be obnoxiously jolly, and no one can say anything to you because you can always fire back with "Grinch!" or "Scrooge!"
Why not embrace the holiday spirit and celebrate this jolly time a little early? After all, it only happens once a year. If you don't, you will be hurriedly throwing up a tree and stockings, while I curl up watching "Elf" with my Christmas sock and hot chocolate, looking at my already decorated house.
