Rejecting every season except the one I’m in

I read this column from years ago and realized I’ve changed how I shop. I sometimes go to stores but do much of it online. I’m doing thriftmas this year and curating cute stacks of goodies for everyone. Fussing with so many in-person stores is a hassle I no longer need. We all change and evolve, except for putting up Christmas early. Let me live.

I’ve written extensively on seasonal mania choosing to sit back and watch the galloping hordes tie up dried corn stalks on porches during the hottest days of August or drag out the Christmas trees before Halloween. I’ve said before and I’ll say again: Be you. Do you. Have at it. I’ll be the one with the pumpkins on my table at Thanksgiving, which Christmas short shrifts every single year. I’m with you, Thanksgiving, and all your still-fall splendor.

I’m in several small groups of friends online that band together when the seasons change: ones that love winter and snow and ones that refuse to decorate for a holiday until that season is here. We are a fierce little band of devotees that consistently get raked over the coals for our dogged belief that Thanksgiving should include wax turkeys and bittersweet garlands, not Christmas trees.

We have fun with our other friends, ones who put up holiday finery very early, and engage in lively banter on whether we’re Scrooges or they’re premature decorators. I look forward to these exchanges every year because it reinforces how different people approach different things, what makes them happy and what doesn’t. I’ve found some get really offended we think Christmas décor should wait until after Thanksgiving. They like to set scenes in their homes with sparkling lights and flocked pines glistening brightly.

Note: I am not trying to get you to stop early holiday decorating. But my Christmas frippery stays packed until the turkey is digested.

I love Christmas decorating, and after the stroke of midnight has passed on Thanksgiving, I break out the Christmas tunes and begin fa la la la la-ing all over the place. But if you force me to listen to carols earlier than that (waves my hand around at every single store), I resent the impending season encroaching on the season I’m choosing to live in. Christmas can become a season of stress if we let it.

For example, Christmas shopping. Sales! Discounts! Blowouts! All these advertising strategies are good, but they make me anxious and worried that if I don’t buy now, I’ll miss out on major savings. They’re probably right. Then you have the hearty souls who announce they’re completely finished with their shopping. God bless you, year-round shopper who has it all together and thinks about Christmas in May. I’m fine beginning the first week of December, maybe the second.

I am very organized but want to enjoy each minute of every season. Let me lay out the best Christmas shopping day, one of several I repeat every single week up until Christmas:

I arise and drink coffee, checking the list I’ve scribbled together the evening before: stocking stuffers, lists sent via text from the kids, several bigger gift ideas, wrapping paper and supplies. After my second cup of coffee, I don my cute boots if it’s cold, light jacket because I get hot when shopping, and contemplate a scarf. Again, the hot thing so I leave the scarf. I stop for a large coffee and point my car toward stores.

Thrift stores beckon, so I start my day there and waste an hour. Then I head to the mall, which is where I begin to want to tear my hair out. I leave the mall with only the free small bottle of lotion from Bath & Body Works. I love their coupons. I head to Gabriel Brothers, my favorite store ever, and spend two hours browsing. I find two things.

By this time I’m hungry, so I head to a restaurant and dine alone, savoring every quiet bite. After eating, I hit Old Navy, Marshall’s, T.J. Maxx and Target. After this I enter World Market and find they have wine tasting happening. I stroll the aisles sipping four separate flavors of vino, place one bottle in my cart, find a nice table runner and leave with no gifts. It is now dark and time to head home.

There’s always next week to finish, and I haven’t stressed myself out because there’s three weeks left until Christmas!

Melissa Herrera is a reflective writer who captures the beauty and sorrow of change. With a career spanning 14 years as an opinion columnist and the publication of two books, she resides in Stark County with her husband and four cats. She writes to preserve memories. You can reach her at junk babe68@gmail.com.