Christmas wasn't always about buying the biggest gifts and setting up the most ornate decorations.

In the winter hundreds of thousands of homes across the country light up in the name of Christmas. Families buy inflatable Santas and penguins, light up reindeer, and strings upon strings of brightly colored lights. There's mistletoe, warm fires, cute center pieces for the dinner table. Trees reach the ceilings of living rooms as if that's what they were planted to do.

All of this is fine, but there's a problem with getting it all set up before at least December 1st, and even that is pushing it. Between Halloween and Christmas comes this incredible holiday called Thanksgiving. There's also Black Friday, a night full of pushing other people out of the way in order to buy "sale" items which were overly priced to begin with.

As consumers, it's easy to get wrapped up in all things "Christmas" and forget that there are more important things than winning the neighborhood light competition. There are pumpkin patches to be explored, hiking trails to be walked on, and hundreds of small towns to visit in the fall. Pumpkin spice lattes need to be drank, yoga pants need to be worn, and acoustic guitars need to be played on the lawns of college campuses and on the stages of coffee shops and bars alike.

Christmas decorations are already something we hold too highly as a society. We gauge the quality of our holidays based on whose homes look the most festive (or most like a Hallmark Christmas card). The Grinches and walruses with little scarves are fun to look at, but putting them out too early? It takes away from the feeling of Christmas when it actually arrives.

Who decided that the week after Halloween we were going to skip right over shopping for Thanksgiving and fall and jump right into Christmas tree displays and shelves upon shelves of ornaments? Forget religion-forgiving, holiday-loving Starbucks coffee cups and tastefully done wreaths for doors. Celebrating winter and all of its holidays is one thing.

Don't become someone who only loves Christmas because it's your chance to show off your "decorating skills" or your wealth. Don't become someone who loses what the real meaning of Christmas (and its respective holidays) is about. Because, if you were truly celebrating Christmas, you wouldn't be hanging up garlands and strings of popcorn that don't make any sense. You'd be setting up Nativity scenes, Advent wreaths, and decorating your lawn in the color purple.

This isn't to say that no one does those things, or that no one understands the "true" meaning of Christmas, but Grinches and Santas aren't what started the tradition of Christmas.

Therefore, if it isn't at least December 1st, keep your Christmas decorations up in the attic where they belong. Spend some quality time with your kids, spouses, friends, and family. Take a break from the moans and groans (get it?) of Halloween and relax as you prepare for the Christmas season. Buy some scented candles, pick a few pumpkins, go bobbing for apples, and see where the pleasures of fall take you.