Photo Courtesy of Elias Tigiser
The joy and whimsy of Christmas is simply irresistible. Why try to push away these positive emotions for the sake of adhering to ‘seasons’?
If you were to ask 100 people when the Christmas season starts, you would get a lot of different answers. I have heard people say that their festive spirit arrives immediately after Halloween, some who think you should wait until after Thanksgiving to “respect the bird,” some who go as far as to wait until Dec. 1, some people who don’t think the season ever ends and keep their Christmas lights up all year, and even one guy who waits until after the anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. However, one answer makes the most sense, and it’s that the Christmas season officially starts Nov. 1.
Many people—including myself—consider Christmas to be the standout best holiday, which means that it is the one filled with the most anticipation. You can easily spend a few months prior to Christmas day celebrating the holiday through movies, music, and putting up decorations. Halloween is similar in that there is a strong spirit surrounding the holiday; shopping for costumes, decorating, watching movies, and carving pumpkins are all things people spend time doing prior to the actual holiday.
But there isn’t really much to do in preparation for Thanksgiving; sure, many people spend time baking or cooking, but you can’t do that more than a week before the holiday or the food won’t be good by time Thanksgiving rolls around. The issue with waiting for Thanksgiving to pass is in the fact that you basically put yourself in holiday limbo after Halloween and before Thanksgiving, because you have a few weeks where you just don’t have much of anything to spend your time preparing for or celebrating. There aren’t many Thanksgiving movies, and decorations for Thanksgiving are generally the same as decorations for the entire fall season; the holiday just doesn’t have the same festive energy as Halloween and Christmas do.
One of the most—if not the single most—crucial parts to the Christmas spirit is Christmas music. Whether you prefer older classics like Bing Crosby’s 1942 song “White Christmas,” or tend to favor more recent holiday songs like Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me,” you have to admit that music is a huge part of the season.
But the question arises: when does it become acceptable to add Christmas music back into your general music rotation? The answer provides itself in the form of the yearly defrosting of Mariah Carey on Nov. 1. Mariah Carey’s 1994 song “All I Want for Christmas is You” skyrockets up the music charts each year following her yearly “it’s time” announcement on her social media accounts, where she declares that the season has officially begun. The annual defrosting is my personal marker for the return of Christmas music, and I think it makes for a pretty good marker for the start of the festive season as a whole.
Movies are another big part of the Christmas season, with different networks starting to air Christmas movies at different times. If you’re a big fan of watching the same movie over and over again, but with a—very—slightly different story each time, look no further than Hallmark Christmas movies, which start airing around the clock mid October each year. Despite the vast majority of them not being particularly good movies by any means, Hallmark Christmas movies have some strange appeal to them through their simplicity, and are a staple to the season for many, including myself.
However, the classic movies are really what make the season. Busting out the old CDs and finding your old dust covered CD player to watch whichever movies are your favorites once November rolls around really makes the Christmas season. My personal favorites are—and will always be—National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), A Christmas Story (1983), and Christmas with the Kranks (2004).
So whether it’s going out shopping for gifts, setting up a mini Christmas tree on your desk, listening to Christmas music, or watching Hallmark movies, getting into the Christmas spirit once November hits makes the cold, wet, and overall dreary time of year a lot more manageable. So I hope everyone who celebrates has a happy Thanksgiving, and a merry Christmas!