We all know the experience. It’s the height of fall, and the air is crisp and cold. Halloween has just ended. You turn on the radio— just to find that stations are already starting to play Christmas carols and holiday songs. You change the channel, but with the turn of that knob it suddenly seems like Christmas is everywhere. And before Thanksgiving has even rolled around! Trees are being decorated, commercials for the holidays are plastered all over your television, and shops are already starting to stock their obligatory Santa-worship iconography. Is November too early for the winter holiday season? 

My straight answer is no. It seems like this is an opinion rapidly declining in popularity. Even I, in the past, have feigned outrage at the Christmas carols and holiday-themed imagery floating around in November, which many think is too early to have the holidays shoved down your throat. And in some respects, I resent this trend that’s emerged. The reason for the early circulation of holiday-themed advertising and products is the blindingly obvious usage of nostalgia connected to the holidays. It’s seen in the songs and carols we all sang as kids in school or all the buyable images of Santa, a figure many idolized in their childhood. It’s a perfect opportunity to dupe the hopelessly sentimental public and milk as much money out of the season of cheer, from as early of a point as possible. 

But despite these clear motivations, it just doesn’t matter. 

If you celebrated winter holidays as a kid, there’s a good chance that you’re unreasonably attached to at least a few of the traditions and holiday products that the culture of Christmas advertising propagated. And that’s okay. It’s the root of why the holiday season comes early in the first place, but also the root of what makes the holidays so important to people: the happy memories they sentimentally attribute to them. 

Besides this, there’s a reason people call it the holiday season. Christmas is more than just a single day; for many, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day only make up a small portion of their holiday activity. The lead up, the hype for the holidays generated by all the festive imagery and music floating around, is important for Christmas’s enduring importance to people. 

Still, you might be saying, before Thanksgiving is way too early for Christmas holiday hype. To this I respond that in the end, it’s really not. It’s not that much earlier or any more noticeable than the early December fanfare. What ends up being way more annoying than the carols on the radio, the Christmas shop displays, or the Santas popping up is the constant outrage heard around every corner from people who can’t stop voicing exactly how much they hate it. Even worse, it’s not as much of an issue as people seem to think. The wide majority of the November Christmas spirit out there doesn’t even compare to the boom that comes in the wintertime. 

In my opinion, running lip service about how much early Christmas annoys us is not worth the effort expended, just to repeat things that everybody else is saying. So really, can we begin to weigh just how much we actually hate the early Christmas season with the energy and time it takes to keep getting upset about it? The November holiday spirit isn’t going anywhere, so we can stop getting so provoked.