“Come on, People! Can we at least wait until after Thanksgiving before we start celebrating Christmas?”

I hear this phrase so often, it’s become more irritating than extra weeks of carols and crummy ornament displays could ever hope to be.

Yes, I understand the problems with starting the Christmas season too early. I don’t want to impose on those who don’t celebrate Christmas. I certainly don’t agree with starting Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day itself. I don’t want to buy a tree in October and have it turn brown before December starts.

What gets to me is people who do celebrate Christmas but like to tell the early starters that they’re doing it wrong because of some subjective opinion that waiting is less tacky. I don’t want someone else telling me when to start stocking up on sparkly paper or start watching in to those ridiculous Hallmark Channel movies (sorry, Mom).

Every November, Christmas is characterized as a bully who comes into Thanksgiving territory and takes over. But I think Thanksgiving sealed its own fate when it put Santa at the end of its Thanksgiving Day Parade. Thanksgiving is like that guy who wants to throw a party, but he’s not sure he’s popular enough to get people to show up. So Thanksgiving calls his super-popular friend, Christmas, and says, “Come on, Christmas, can you drop in on my day for a little bit? People will get more excited if they know you’re coming too.” Then, when Christmas shows up, everyone is like, “Hey, look, Christmas is here! We can start celebrating that too” And Thanksgiving gets jealous and tells Christmas to leave, but Christmas is all “Hey, you invited me here.” And everyone makes a big scene and then you’re never sure if you can invite those holidays to the same party ever again and Halloween is going to get jealous to have been left out…

I clearly didn’t know how to end that metaphor, but you get the idea.

Still need a little help rationalizing your decision to kick off the Christmas season now? Here’s a list of reasons why it’s okay to get a head start.

Avoid the Rush

Maybe it’s not a bad idea to get some of that shopping and card writing out of the way. You can get your preparations done bit by bit, instead of cramming it all in late December when you’d rather be visiting with friends or watching specials. Besides, if you do get stuck scrambling to get all your Christmas prep done at the last minute, you can bet that those same sanctimonious people who told you “Don’t start so early,” in November will now be saying, “You should have started earlier” in an equally smug tone. Forget that noise.

The Weather Ain’t getting any Nicer

Wouldn’t you rather hit the mall early than wait for the sky to fill with sleet, the roads to fill with slush and all parking lots to look like that skating rink from A Charlie Brown Christmas? Sure, this isn’t a problem for people all over the world, but for quite a few places, planning for icy conditions makes all the difference.

Be Merciful to the Post Office

Ever notice how Amazon.com offers rewards for people who can get their gift orders placed early. I suspect that the Postal Service, FedEx, UPS, and anyone else involved in delivery would rather deliver some gifts and cards early than ship everyone’s orders all at once in one big, backbreaking heap.

Everything’s Controversial

Even if you love Christmas, you gotta admit, it can be controversial. People who don’t celebrate Christmas can feel excluded and not everyone can agree on how to solve that problem. And then we get sucked into weird arguments about red coffee cups. But Thanksgiving isn’t always a cornucopia of political correctness either. Are we celebrating a harvest festival or a brief period of peace before the betrayal of the indigenous people? Not to mention how overconsumption of meat affects vegans, vegetarians, and anyone with a special diet. Heck, I think the whole reason why more people aren’t talking about the problems with Thanksgiving is because they’re already distracted by the problems with Christmas. For better or worse, celebrating Christmas early creates a smokescreen that protects Thanksgiving from greater scrutiny.

Wether you like to wait or dive in, I wish you a Happy Whatever.

-Marj