Driving through Atlanta’s Eastside one evening in late October, I was struck by the sight of a large fir with sparkling white lights on display in the picture window of a modern-style home.
Was that a Christmas tree? In October? Before Halloween?
My initial surprise was dulled when I noticed this phenomenon across metro Atlanta.
Students in Sandy Springs were wearing Santa hats to school before Thanksgiving break.
Santa was posted up at Lenox Square, taking pictures with kids almost two months before his official 24-hour gift-delivery shift.
Days before Thanksgiving, at the Halidom, a local eatery on Moreland Avenue, giant silver Christmas bulbs at the entrance competed for space with pumpkins still leftover from Halloween.
Once again, Christmas had arrived early, and some Atlanta residents seemed to embrace its early onset.
I was preparing to write this column about the evils of commercialism until I realized that those evils have been pushing us toward early Christmas preparations for more than 100 years.
So now I’m less interested in the fact that people are decorating or shopping for Christmas earlier, and more interested in the research showing that doing so is good for our emotional well-being.
I’ve written plenty of stories about Christmas creep, a term coined in the 1980s, but only recently did I learn that Americans have been arguing about it for a century.
Newspapers recorded early starts to the Christmas season as far back as the 1880s. In 1913, an ad from the Montag Brothers in the Atlanta Georgian encouraged retailers to stop by their Nelson Street shop to stock up on Christmas goods or risk losing business from customers shopping in early December.
Initially, Americans were cool with early Christmas preparations, but around 1941 those attitudes shifted. That’s when Congress decided Thanksgiving should be permanently parked on the fourth Thursday in November. Previously, the country was divided, with some states still celebrating Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November. The change lengthened the Christmas shopping season and gave retailers ample time to rack up Christmas sales.
The following year, Americans were urged to shop for and ship Christmas presents before Nov. 1 if they wanted loved ones stationed overseas during World War II to receive packages in time.
According to extensive research by Bill Black, these two events are the reason Thanksgiving lost its role as the “starting post of the holiday season.”
Some of us are still complaining about Christmas creep — mainly those of us concerned with commercialism, Christianity or ennui evolving from too much of a good thing. But many of us now also recognize Christmas creep for what it is — just another Christmas tradition.
For many years, I waited until mid-December to put up the tree and decorate my home. And I was always the person bolting to the store on the eve of Christmas Eve to buy gifts. But for the past five years or so, it has been our family tradition to put up Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving.
While I may be surprised when I see Christmas trees and Santa hats in October, I will no longer complain about the early arrival of the Christmas spirit for one main reason: It makes us happy.
When the tree is decorated, when the mantle is dressed and a fire is blazing in the fireplace, when the “Joy” sign in the window is illuminated and casting a soft red light throughout the living room, the entire house feels a bit warmer, a bit more joy-filled, a bit more like Christmas.
“Christmas decorations stir up pleasant emotions and the sooner you decorate, the longer you experience the benefits,” writes author and psychotherapist Amy Morin for Psychology Today.
Getting into the Christmas spirit by doing things like decorating, listening to Christmas music and baking cookies connects us to nostalgia that reminds us of loved ones and our childhoods. Those memories bring deeper meaning to our lives and our social bonds, Morin writes.
Preparing early for Christmas can also help soothe collective anxiety, and we’ve had plenty of that lately.
Though you may get a few eye rolls for blasting Christmas tunes in September or setting your reindeer on the roof in October, an early dive into Christmas can also signal to strangers that you are welcoming and open to connections. That can’t be a bad thing at a time when so many locals are experiencing feelings of loneliness.
Decorating early can help expel the winter blues and spread good vibes among friends, family and strangers. And Christmas is a time when we all feel a little more encouraged to care deeply about others; to spread love; to give gifts for the sake of giving; and to do all of those things beyond our immediate social circles.
Hundreds of years of complaints and concerns about Christmas creep haven’t changed a thing. So let’s just embrace it once and for all, and revel in the extra joy it can bring.
Read more on the Real Life blog (ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog/), find Nedra on Facebook (facebook.com/AJCRealLifeColumn) and X (@nrhoneajc) or email her at nedra.rhone@ajc.com.
