“It’s tiiiiiiiimmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeee!” Wow! What a year it has been, and now, the holiday season is finally here.
However, the start of Christmas celebrations has been a debate for years. Some people think it’s best to start celebrating Christmas right after Thanksgiving or even before then. Others believe that celebrations and decorations should start a couple of weeks before Christmas.
In the CBS article “Why Are People Decorating for Holidays so Early”, Amy Morin said, “So during the pandemic, having been isolated on our [news] team, it felt really good to suddenly be like, ‘but we’re in this together.’ That’s the sort of thing we want to do is banding together with our communities overall shows it reduces that feeling of collective dread, of collective anxiety that you haven’t during tough times.”
During the pandemic, people yearned to be together with their families, and the holidays gave them a sense of hope. Once the pandemic ended, everyone took advantage of being together with their families. Since then, families and friends want to cherish and spend as much time as possible celebrating the holidays, and the trend has been continuing for the past several years.
The pandemic is just one factor of the early celebrated holidays, and there are many others.
“A factor that impacts when I celebrate [Christmas] is definitely availability,” Robin Utz said. My job gets really crazy the closer to New Year’s Day that we get, so I like to do it a little bit earlier. But this year, I’m traveling during my ‘usual’ time of putting up decorations, so I’m actually decorating when I get back, so that was a big factor. Also, other family expectations, like my daughter, who is six, would really like it if I had decorated already.”
On the other hand, Emma Chan (’29), starts celebrating Christmas early out of “peer pressure.,” she said.
“Because I feel like at that time, most other people have already put up their Christmas decorations, so we kind of feel obliged to put up our Christmas decorations, Chan said. “I guess you could call it peer pressure.”
Both Utz and Chan think that people start celebrating Christmas at different times for different reasons, usually on the early side rather than later. But when is the best time to actually start?
Some people, like Utz, think that people can start celebrating Christmas anytime.
“I think if we still can swim in a swimming pool, that might be a little bit much, Utz said. “But … I’m not going to yuck somebody else’s yum if they like it.”
This varies when comparing what Sabrina Remy (’29) thought, which was that Christmas shouldn’t be celebrated any earlier than Thanksgiving.
“[We should start celebrating Christmas] around or after Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving doesn’t get enough attention,” Remy said. “You need to celebrate Thanksgiving before moving on to Christmas. Especially since Thanksgiving is a fall holiday.”
People have many different ideas on when Christmas decorations should go up and when Christmas celebrations should start and in reality there is no right time. You and your family should celebrate and put up Christmas decorations when it feels right for you, not when other people do it.
