Light It Up!

We chose to put up or Christmas decorations over the weekend. Normally, we wait until December 1st. But it's 2020. Every extra moment of joy is worth milking. 

It seems as though a lot of our neighbours agree. Our housing cooperative is looking bright and colourful on these cold, dark winter nights. 

My kids were very excited about the idea of decorating the tree, so they helped with that task. We didn't have a tree topper, so I took Ada in to a local store to pick one out. She didn't pick the one I did have liked, but I bought the one she picked. She was right, it looks great on the tree.

I also grabbed two extra strings of fairy lights, one more for around our living area and a new one for outside our front door. 

Our most recent upgrade to our Christmas assortment is a blow up, lighted unicorn that sits on our balcony and has elicited a lot of laughter in just two days. Either from the moment I plugged it in, and both my kids started taking to it like it was a friend that was patiently listening, or the number of neighbours that have looked up and just started laughing. 

I love Christmas, usually from December 1st. But it's 2020. Do the thing that brings you joy now and do it for as long as you can. 

It's Begining To Look A Lot Like November 4th

Halloween is behind us. The little ones are still in a diabetic coma from all the sugar they managed to loot from their neighbours three days ago, and so it's a perfect time to begin looking to Christmas.

Yes, it's that time of the year again, November. This can only mean that shops have removed all their skeletons and cobwebs and replaced them with elves and fairy lights. I still there is money to be made in reversible decorations for these two holiday seasons. Think about it, on one side is a terrifying skull, rotting and empty eyed; then on November 1st you flip it over to reveal the rosy cheeked face of a man whose life goal is to sneak into the bedrooms of children across the world and leave them gifts. The perfect dichotomy.

Admittedly, certain stores need to start the push this early. If your sole purpose for existing it to sell Christmas decorations, or novelty Santa lawn gnomes, then your window of opportunity is pretty tight. You need to have your product out there for people to use as soon as they're ready to decorate their dwellings in the festive cheer.

But if you're a normal, everyday store, then do you really need to have the fir tree adorned with colourful lights and a star in your window before December 1st, or the last week in November at the earliest? Toy stores sell the same stuff at Christmas as they do the rest of the year, they just stock more around now. We don't need to have Let It Snow or some sickly rendition of Jingle Bells blaring into our ears at this stage.

Yesterday morning when I went to get a banana from Starbucks I was shocked to find their Christmas gift displays up already. In hindsight of course I shouldn't have been surprised at all, but it just reminded me that the most wonderful time of the year is fast approaching. Don't get me wrong, I do love Christmas. I can't wait to buy all the lights, a tree, random, brightly coloured decorations and put them everywhere in our apartment. I just want to enjoy Christmas at, you know, Christmas.

And I feel that Christmas starts on December 1st.