A List About Decking the Halls

Yesterday, while taking a break from our Sunday of Pajama-Enwrapped Sloth, I went to go pick up some melatonin for Jeffrey.  On the way home, I was flipping through radio stations when I heard, to my horror, a CHRISTMAS SONG.

Egads!

Say it isn't so!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Ahem.

I'm not really sure why it struck me as so much of a terrible thing, but apparently, in the argument raging (occasionally pootering forth?) over when to begin celebrating the holiday season, I have come down on the "not before Thanksgiving" side.  I don't know when this happened, as I consider myself fairly unGrinchy and loving of Christmas and all of the festive and spiritual aspects of it.  But apparently, at some point in time, I said, "NO.  We will have the Day of Turkey and THEN we will start the DAY OF TREE."

I have no idea why.  I mean, I'm one of those "try to keep Christmas in your heart all year 'round" kind of folks, so one would think I'd be all "hang up some frickin' LIGHTS, yo!" in....say...September.  But no.  I'm grumping around in my CRV going, "Fie on you, Mariah Carey, and your jingly little Christmas ditty."  I decided to examine my Yuletide insanity, list style.

Awwwww, yeah.

The List in Which Not Hannah Contemplates Why She is Not Decking Her Halls Yet:

1. She does not want her children swept up in the commercialism of the holiday.  Uh, no.  That isn't it.  Having wrestled with the Spirit (various and assorted Spirits, actually), I've come to realize that when Hobby Lobby puts up the cinnamon-scented glass balls in early October, I do a little happy dance of cheer.   I'm sorry, but the American Christmas, with Santa and reindeer and twenty-four hours of A Christmas Story is sort of saturated with commercialism, and I decided quite some time ago to embrace the glitter and magic and fizziness of it while leaving the "buy this stuff now" behind.  I mean, watching the Macy's Day Parade and seeing the REAL Santa Claus was and is a humongous part of my Christmas season, but I'm not hurrying out on Black Friday to Macy's, know what I mean?  
2. She does not want her children to forget the spiritual Reason for the Season.  Can I be blunt here?  Last year, I was so inundated by both the Christian culture and Paganistas I love online and the war of "Who Has The Most Claim to the Third Week of December" that I wanted to barf until tinsel came out my nose.  The end result was that we celebrated neither Yule nor Christmas with any spiritual backdrop, and nobody was struck by lightning OR visited by a vengeful king of any vegetable  variety.  (If you aren't a Pagan, it's probably best to move along.  Nothing to see in that last sentence. Alternately, you can ask me about it.  I'm easy like Sunday morning when it comes to discussing the Holly and Oak Kings.)  Now, this doesn't mean that I didn't MISS a spiritual backdrop to the holiday.  I did.  There is magic in the Return of the Sun and magic in the Birth of the Son and can't we all just get along??  (The short answer, in America, is "no.  No, we cannot.")  I would LIKE for my children to know the spiritual Reasons for the Seasons, and plan on teaching them in as organic a fashion as I can, but I have also made peace with the concept that, for better or for worse, the American Christmas is just as much about Santa and elves and reindeer as it is about Christ or the Winter Solstice, maybe even more so.  Frankly, given that neither Santa nor the elves nor the reindeer have ever been used as an excuse to persecute anybody, it strikes me that embracing the secular aspect of the holiday would be a good idea for the most spiritual among us, a sort of break from the tedious nit-picking of American politics and religious disagreements.  Haul out the holly and you better be good, for goodness sake and all that.  SANTA IS WATCHING YOU, people.
3. What?
4. Nevermind.
5. She still hasn't taken down the Halloween stuff.   Okay, this one is true.  My living room counter holds the vast majority of the Halloween deckings waiting to be repacked, but one can still find the odd (plastic) spider or (real, unfortunately, River the Magpie strikes again) pumpkin lurking in the bathrooms.  I'm not sure where Will put the Halloween tub and since he still hasn't put up the tub of winter clothes too big for River or the Tub of the Jackets from when he took them down weeks ago, the idea of taking out another tub (or typing the word "tub" again) of holiday accessories is, shall we say, daunting.  I think I'll tackle the Halloween stuff Wednesday as I work the first two days of the week, but there will still be some Harvest-oriented things that I don't know what to do with, which leads me to...
6. She doesn't want Thanksgiving to feel neglected.   This one is SORT of true, too.  But, unlike Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving doesn't have built in cute decorations.  I mean, okay, yes, cornucopias are cool and all, but after that you've got...what?  Turkeys?  Ears of corn?  I'm NOT going to start putting ceramic Native American figurines on my mantel, and let's be honest:  a pilgrim around Thanksgiving wasn't all rosy-cheeked and smiling.  Gaunt and sore-ridden people dressed in buckled shoes do not belong on my front door wreath.  Don't get me wrong.  I ADORE Thankgiving.  It is the holiday without spiritual obligation, a time to reflect on the year and enjoy one's family and friends and eat until you feel guilty.  But it isn't much on decorations.  And, yes, I understand that one might also consider Thankgiving as the jumping off point for the mass genocide that our American founders enacted.  I didn't say that Thanksgiving was without a massive amount of guilt. Pretty much what it boils down to is, I want to eat my turkey and dressing in peace, and that does not include any obligation to deck the halls with tiny lights shaped like cranberry sauce wedges.
7. She is simply too busy to consider taking on holiday decoration of any sort.  This is a handy excuse, and I wish I could say it was true.  However, an examination of my time spent lately leads me to believe that I could get a lot more done if I removed myself from the fruitless, aggravating, dumbassery-laden political discussions on Facebook and turned my attention to other things, like vacuuming, hanging with the kidlets, or, you know, sleeping.  I am more busy now than I was three months ago, but I am hardly falling over with the business.  Not in any real way that would mean I was struggling to do things like throw up a few strings of light or a jingle bell or two.  
8. Secretly, she hates Christmas.  This is categorically untrue.  I love it all.  I love the story of the little baby in the manger, I love the story of the Holly King, I love the return of the sun (even though the coldest months are ahead of us).  I love the cookies and candy and sausage balls and wassail.  I love Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant and Boris Karloff (the Grinch, people, come ON) and Tom Hanks' dead eyes (that part of The Polar Express gives me the hoobies) and even, heaven help me, Vanessa Williams being visited by that dude from Duran Duran.  I love Rudolph and Frosty and the little drummer boy (sing it for me, Bob Seger, and throw in a little sax while you're at it.)  I love the tree and the wreaths and the blankets and the pine straw angel that is always the last ornament unpacked.  I love wrapping presents and taking the kids to see Santa.  I love making lists.  I love the WHOLE DANG THING.
9. What am I waiting for?
10. THE HALLS.  THEY WILL BE DECKED!  STARTING ON WEDNESDAY!

I feel so much better now.  Lists are so awesome, aren't they?  In the faith of The Filing Cabinet, they are totally The Psalms.  Why isn't there a holiday to celebrate The Filing Cabinet?   With a tree made out of sticky notes.  And individually colored sharpies hanging from the chimney with care?  And...and...cookies shaped like accordion folders?

One holiday at a time, y'all.  One holiday at a time.