Why I put my tree up before I carve the Thanksgiving turkey.
All of the arguments that chestnuts should not be roasting on an open fire in the month of November make sense to me: the nagging fact that retailers haul out the proverbial holly before Halloween has fully passed for purely commercial reasons, further cheapening an already materialistic mode of celebration; the dilution of a particularly special time of year by stretching it to the point of exhaustion; the infringement upon both Thanksgiving and the traditional Christian season of Advent, which each tend to be swallowed up by premature Christmas cheer; the obnoxious recruitment of Christmas into the culture wars—think malicious wishes for a “merry Christmas”—that can make the entire season feel alienating and isolating. Every position above has its merits, and none of them stop me from rockin’ around my Christmas tree starting November 1.
Maybe there is no good defense of getting into the Christmas spirit as early as I do—though I can’t help but feel a sense of kinship with those other handful of houses already decked out in lights before Thanksgiving. So have some patience with those of us who need a little Christmas right this very minute: a two-and-a-half-month Christmas really does have a few pleasures to recommend it.
First, there are the practical reasons to deck the halls early. If you adore Christmastime and have spent several years accumulating decorations, you might as well get your money’s worth by enjoying them as long as you like. (So goes my husband’s rationale for draping the house in strings of lights as soon as the last trick-or-treater heads home.) If your decorating regimen involves outdoor work, it’s also pleasant to get it done earlier in autumn, before it’s time to go caroling out in the snow.
Charlie Warzel: The case for keeping up your Christmas tree until March
Then there are the more personal explanations. Christmas is beautiful, and not strictly in the religious sense: As the days grow darker and the nights fall longer, spangling one’s dwelling in twinkling lights brings a sense of joy and comfort. The holiday also offers opportunities for engaging with beauty for its own sake. Only during this time of year do we ornament trees, wreaths, and garlands with shining globes and gleaming baubles. There are elegant versions of Christmas décor and kitschy versions; both, to me, are lovely in their own ways. Adorned with light and color, ordinary objects—houses, streetlamps, shop windows—are transformed as if by magic.
Christmas is an enchanted time. It has the power to connect people in ways we don’t normally explore. The season permits us to share the details of our lives with acquaintances and friends in the form of catch-up calls and Christmas cards—I treasure the notes I receive, and all of the adorable pictures. There are few opportunities in the year to give gifts both to beloved friends and near strangers—a mail carrier, a delivery driver, an office custodian—but Christmas serves as grounds to reach out with good tidings and cheer. In a lonely and sometimes cold world, Christmas is an occasion to wish one another happiness and warmth.
Max Khan Hayward: Eat, drink, and be merry! No really.
This is one of the many reasons why the abuse of Christmas to exclude or antagonize people is a tragedy and a travesty. In recent years, the greeting “merry Christmas” and with it the whole of the holiday have been marshaled in support of a particular political agenda, one that prizes occasions to hurt feelings. But these efforts have mainly succeeded at making Christmas celebrations feel loaded with unnecessary political content. The point of the holiday has never been to bully or harass, and there is room for all kinds of Christmastide joy—not just the sort that came standard in the mid-century. For this reason, I exclusively wish people “happy holidays”— after all, multiple holidays (including Thanksgiving, New Year’s, and the wintertime celebrations of other cultures and religions) occur in the span of a long Christmas season. Excluding people from the fun isn’t in the spirit of Christmas.
Because Christmas in the fullest sense is about love and peace. Few other seasons are so dedicated to the notion of goodwill among people as this one—there are patriotic holidays for national amity and Valentine’s Day for the celebration of romantic love, but Christmas is about a more universal love that encompasses all nations and all people. Largely because of this sentiment, it’s hard for me to think of a happier time. Why not celebrate Christmas even sooner? I could certainly be tempted to enjoy the season even more—in the Philippines, for example, Christmas cheer arrives in September and lasts until a week after the new year. But the mundanity of the year is perhaps what lends Christmas its special powers, and so I wait for Halloween to pass to put my festive playlist on loop. Still, I keep a little Christmas in my heart all year round.
Have Yourself an Early Little Christmas
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14.11.2023
Why I put my tree up before I carve the Thanksgiving turkey.
All of the arguments that chestnuts should not be roasting on an open fire in the month of November make sense to me: the nagging fact that retailers haul out the proverbial holly before Halloween has fully passed for purely commercial reasons, further cheapening an already materialistic mode of celebration; the dilution of a particularly special time of year by stretching it to the point of exhaustion; the infringement upon both Thanksgiving and the traditional Christian season of Advent, which each tend to be swallowed up by premature Christmas cheer; the obnoxious recruitment of Christmas into the culture wars—think malicious wishes for a “merry Christmas”—that can make the entire season feel alienating and isolating. Every position above has its merits, and none of them stop me from rockin’ around my Christmas tree starting November 1.
Maybe there is no good defense of getting into the Christmas spirit as early as I do—though I can’t help but feel a sense of kinship with those other handful of houses already decked out in lights before Thanksgiving. So have some patience with those of us who need a little Christmas right this very minute: a two-and-a-half-month........
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