Complaints about the ever-earlier Christmas displays in malls and shops are a kind of American cliché at this point, along with complaints about the madness of Black Friday shopping after Thanksgiving. (Oddly enough, Black Friday is now becoming a commercial and social ritual among Europeans, who don’t have the Friday after Thanksgiving off for the sensible reason that they don’t have Thanksgiving.)
Normally, I love joining these complaints. In most years, my household would be grouped among the Advent snobs. This is a group of elite, friendly Americans who hold onto the conviction that there are twelve days of Christmas, and they begin on Christmas Day. The debate rages in our set about whether to bag the season decor after twelve days, or whether the Christmas season lasts until Candlemas, which is February 2. Advent snobs get to believe that their complaints about ever-earlier Christmas commercialism is rooted in deep, liturgical principles that reflect the metaphysical order of the universe.
But not this year.
A few days after Halloween, my wife walked in and remarked on the Christmas decor at Target. I had noticed the Christmas titles creeping up on our streaming services too. And we could see Christmas coming upon us in all its red, green, and gold tinsel fury. Soon the Xmas earworms would be drilled into our heads — Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas.” Soon would come the nights where the kids are falling asleep, and my dearest puts on the meandering, warm rom-com The Holiday. My wife noted those commercial displays that were “already” up, and paused before daring to say: “I don’t hate it.”
And surprising myself, I thought: I don’t either.
