No thankyou.

It feels like this year things are starting even earlier than usual. Some shops have always choked us with cinnamon and hurt our eyes with glitter months before they should,

but come on folks, decorating your house before advent? Even waiting until the first isn’t really waiting, is it?

My neighbour had her tree up the last week in November and it made me feel so many things: stress that the busy time had been brought right under my nose before I was ready, annoyance that somehow Christmas was being stretched out when it was supposed to be treasured, panic that I would feel the pressure and get my tree before I normally do.

Shops do it for money, but why do people? And then I thought: maybe when you’ve had a terrible year and life is bleak, why not bring a little cheer in? It’s brave to do it in some ways; inviting painful memories of loved ones who have gone and just trying to find joy again in their gaping absence. I’d put up my tree just for that.

Isn’t it a wee bit sad that we don’t have things like that at other times of the year?

But wait, I think we do- the first snowdrops in the New Year, the crocuses that follow, the ever-present robin, the first smell of cut grass, the first light evening, the first golden leaf- all these things carry us right up to Christmas, if we take the time to notice.

So, go on then. Put your tree up when you like, twinkle your lights at me in November, eat turkey in July…

Just do not play ‘oh I wish it could be Christmas every day’ because honestly, nobody wants that.

Do they?