Putting the Holidays on Pause

Four weeks ago I got into an argument with someone who walked into class blasting “Jingle Bells.” Hearing such upbeat and cheerful music so early in the year ruined my day. We argued back and forth, and eventually came to the agreement that neither of us would change our minds.

The countdown to Christmas begins too early. I am with those that believe that the countdown shouldn’t commence until December. You shouldn’t break out Michael Bublé’s Christmas album until it freezes – no matter how smooth his voice may be.

I believe that Christmas shouldn’t be celebrated until the night of Thanksgiving at the earliest, preferably Black Friday. But before you start calling me a heartless wretch or a Scrooge, or purposely play annoying Christmas music around me, I have my reasons.

There are three distinct holidays in the last three months of the year, but too often they wrongly get crossed over and confused with each other. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are too different to bleed together in the middle. Christmas celebration should be on its own in December. The holidays should be significant time with family, and drawing them out for three months defeats the purpose.

I cringe and bolt when I see trees and holiday decorations in Target before people even go trick-or-treating on Halloween night. Halloween decorations should be taken down within a week after Halloween and then Thanksgiving decorations can go up. Black Friday is the day that I, the Grinch of my family, will allow them to break out the holiday themed hand towels, get up on a ladder to put up the Christmas lights or hang up the Christmas calendar countdown.

Each holiday needs to stay in its own month to give it justice. Even though I’ll probably yell at you if you celebrate a holiday too early, when the time is right, I love them.

I love Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the time when 20 members of my extended family congregate at my dad’s house to share the day. Despite the ever-present “what are you doing with your life” talks, I love every second of it. The air is crisp enough to break out your favorite sweater and the leaves outside my bedroom window turn shades of yellow and orange. Mixing Christmas festivities just doesn’t work with the atmosphere that Thanksgiving has.

I idle as long as possible, cherishing these moments, waiting to celebrate Christmas until I’ve properly soaked up the time with my family.

People too often overlook Thanksgiving and jump right to Christmas, already eager to open up stockings and presents under the tree on Christmas morning, when Thanksgiving is something in itself to savor.

Impatience and excitement have pushed the holidays to start weeks in advance, and end abruptly.

Christmas lovers need to wait to listen to holiday music until it actually feels like Christmas. I have nothing against Rudolph or the Grandma that got run over by a reindeer, but it needs to wait until Black Friday. Holiday music makes you want to cuddle up with the fire blazing and hot chocolate in hand, but who wants to do that when it’s 60 degrees and sunny out?

In September, I rushed to turn off the radio in my car because 93.3 started playing “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” I know that there’s no music for Thanksgiving to keep you patient until you can shamelessly listen to Mariah Carey. There’s no Thanksgiving movies to spend your Sundays watching before Santa Claus is shown on TV, but with some self-control you can resist the indulgence that awaits during the holidays out of respect for the other holidays that also only come around once a year.  

Maybe I seem like a Grinch, or maybe you agree with me, but either way all I ask is that you restrain from ruining my day via Christmas music in November. No matter how great the Christmas song, let’s leave it for December.