The holiday season is quickly approaching, but is November 1st the day to start getting into the festive mood? Personally, I have seen many posts and TikToks claiming that as soon as November starts, it is reasonable to begin celebrating Christmas. I don’t agree with many of these statements. Mariah Carey should not be “defrosting” as soon as the clock hits 12 on November 1st. But before you get angry, hear me out.

Not to sound like every old man walking into a store complaining “they already have the Christmas decorations out,” but I’ve seen many stores with Christmas decorations or products out before October 31st. It is as if any type of holiday that happens to fall between summer and Christmas has no value. I am biased because I love Halloween and I feel as if it doesn’t get enough recognition, but going down to detail, November 1st marks more than a whole month away from Christmas, in fact, it’s fifty-five days away from December 25th.

Now onto one of the toughest subjects: Christmas music. From what I understand, many Chicago radio stations started playing Christmas music on the 1st of November, the earliest Chicago has ever started Christmas music. Once again you have fifty-five days until the actual day of Christmas. Let that sink in. Hearing the same couple of songs would drive me crazy, but you do you. I know I won’t start listening to any Christmas music until around or after Thanksgiving. This then brings up the question of when is it an appropriate time to start celebrating Christmas, and why do people suddenly start to celebrate so early?

I believe that the perfect time to start putting up decorations and getting into the festive mood is either a couple of days before Thanksgiving or even after. I believe that giving the whole month of December and a couple of days in November, is a reasonable amount of time to prepare and begin Christmas celebrations. Celebrating any earlier becomes a little awkward as there are still two major holidays Americans celebrate, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

From what I’ve come to learn, the need to start celebrating Christmas earlier stems from social media. From the many jokes that are made on TikTok and Instagram, many people take it seriously and begin to listen to Christmas music as soon as they can. Putting up Christmas trees and decorations a little too early is what people are doing. That’s my hypothesis, at least. I don’t understand why the world doesn’t give more appreciation and attention to the significant rise of Christian girl autumn fashion and many teenage girls ordering pumpkin spice lattes during the month of November.

I admit it might come off as me being a grouch, but so much more could be done with the almost 2 months between Halloween and Christmas. Personally, I’ll be prepping my black Friday shopping and daydreaming about what I’ll be eating on Thanksgiving until the appropriate time comes for me to finally tune in to 93.9 and listen to Christmas tunes.