The holiday season is upon us, so get used to it

Students in Sandy Springs wore Santa hats to school ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Nearly two months before his official 24-hour gift delivery shift, Santa was stationed in Lenox Square taking photos with children.

Days before Thanksgiving, at Halidom, a local restaurant on Moreland Avenue, giant silver Christmas bulbs competed for space at the entrance with pumpkins left over from Halloween.

Once again, Christmas had come early, and some Atlantans seemed to welcome the early start.

I was preparing to write this column about the evils of commercialism until I realized that these 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 earlier for Christmas and more interested in the research that shows this is good for our emotional well-being.

I’ve written many stories about Christmas Creep, a term coined in the 1980s, but only recently learned that Americans have been arguing about it for a century.

As early as the 1880s, newspapers recorded an early start to the Christmas season. In 1913, a Montag Brothers ad in the Atlanta Georgian urged retailers to stop by their Nelson Street store to stock up on Christmas goods or risk losing business because customers were shopping in early December.

Originally, Americans were relaxed about early Christmas preparations, but around 1941 this attitude changed. At that time, Congress decided to permanently place Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November. Previously, the country was divided, with some states still celebrating Thanksgiving on the last day of November. The change extended the holiday shopping season and gave retailers plenty of time to boost holiday sales.

The following year, Americans were urged to purchase and ship Christmas presents before November 1 if they wanted their loved ones stationed abroad during World War II to receive the packages on time.

According to extensive research by Bill Black, these two events are the reason Thanksgiving has lost its role as the “starting point of the holiday.”

Some of us still complain about Christmas creep—especially those of us who worry about commercialization, Christianity, or the boredom that comes from too much of a good thing. But many of us also now recognize that Christmas is 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 who rushed to the store to buy gifts on the eve of Christmas Eve. But for about five years now, our family has made it a tradition to put up Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving.

While I may be surprised to 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 mantel is dressed and there’s a fire burning in the fireplace, when the “Joy” sign in the window is lit and casting a soft red light through the living room, the whole house feels a little warmer, a little full of joy, a little more like Christmas.

“Christmas decorations evoke pleasant emotions, and the sooner you decorate, the longer you will feel the benefits,” writes author and psychotherapist Amy Morin for Psychology Today.

When we get into the holiday spirit through things like decorating, listening to Christmas music, and baking cookies, we evoke nostalgia that reminds us of loved ones and our childhood. These memories give our lives and our social bonds deeper meaning, writes Morin.

Preparing for Christmas early can also help ease collective anxiety, and we’ve had plenty of that lately.

While you might roll a few eyes when you sing Christmas carols in September or put your reindeer on the roof in October, diving in early on Christmas can also signal to strangers that you’re welcoming and open to socializing. That can’t be a bad thing at a time when so many locals are feeling a sense of loneliness.

Decorating early can help banish the winter blues and spread good vibes to friends, family, and strangers. And Christmas is a time when we all feel a little more encouraged to care deeply for others; spread love; give gifts to give; and doing all of these things outside of our immediate social circles.

Hundreds of years of complaints and worries about Christmas horrors haven’t changed anything. Let’s just embrace it once and for all and enjoy the extra joy it can bring.

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