By GABRIEL MARTINEZ-AMEZAGA December 16, 2021

Christmas is a yearly tradition for the vast majority of the American population, and something many people look forward to celebrating. A big part of celebrating the holiday is decorating: people put up trees, wreaths, cards, ornaments, or even remodel their house and yard for the season.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the Christmas spirit can be wonderful: it’s a nice way to get together and spread some positivity. BUT, with this tradition, comes a debate: when should you start decorating and getting in the Christmas spirit? There is only one correct answer, and unfortunately many people get it wrong: AFTER Thanksgiving. Yet sadly, we live in a world where people can barely hold off past Halloween to start their Yuletide nonsense.

Christmas is on December 25th, nearly two months after Halloween and approximately a month after Thanksgiving… SO WHY IN THE WORLD DO PEOPLE START DECORATING FOR CHRISTMAS THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN??? There is plenty of time for you to decorate, no matter the scale of your decorations, even after Thanksgiving has passed. And yet, people insist on decorating the day after Halloween, completely ignoring the existence of Thanksgiving and stretching out the Christmas season into a joyless slog.

So what is it that brings people to this weird, maniacal, wrongheaded form of celebration? Is it a mass delusion, a psychological defect, or a form of insanity that makes people believe that the only way to get through the darkening days of November is by turning on the Christmas lights?

It could also be a conspiracy, a market ploy to brainwash the American population into spending their hard-earned dollars on endless strings of lights and enormous light-up reindeer. Whatever the explanation, it has to be at the very least extreme, because no rational person would decide to start decorating for Christmas the day after Halloween, and just pretend Thanksgiving does not exist.

After Thanksgiving, have at it! Being in the Christmas spirit is fun after all. But the holiday that separates Halloween and Christmas deserves its own spot, and that leaves almost a whole month for Christmas. It seems so obvious, but infuriatingly, people get it wrong all the time. 

And don’t get me started on people who leave their decorations out after New Year.