The months of November and December seem to fly by every year. Before we know it, Thanksgiving is here, holiday lights and trees go up, shopping malls become chaotic and we’re boarding a plane to visit family. So how can we stretch out the holiday season to we can enjoy as much of it as possible for the longest amount of time without appearing ridiculous?
Growing up, my mother always put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. That gave us about a month and a week of festive lights, a Christmas tree and holiday music. This always seemed reasonable, but it seems that I would begin seeing holiday displays in stores prior to Thanksgiving! I’m assuming that the marketing efforts of retailers are in hopes that people will become excited about the holidays and not forget about Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Come on! There’s almost no way we could FORGET!!
In New York the holiday season starts to around the time of the lighting of the Rockefellar Tree at the Rockefellar Center. As of 11/21 the tree has already been placed, but it will not be lit until November 30th thus officially beginning the New York holiday season.
Hanukkah has an official start date and duration. Hanukkah starts on December 2nd in 2010 and ends 8 nights later. This is a clear cut definition of when the Jewish holiday season takes place – so why is there still so much ambiguity?
I guess I haven’t really answered the holiday season question, which leads me to believe that the holiday season ‘officially’ starts for everyone at different times. Whether you put the tree up on Christmas day or end the holidays on the 8th night of Hanukkah, you and your family get to choose when to officially begin celebrating. I think many of us like to start sooner so we can extend all the festivities!
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