How early is too early to start preparing for the holidays?

By Mariana Carvajal-Munoz,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Many stores start selling Christmas decorations months before December to meet demand. (Photo: M. Carvajal-Munoz)

As the holiday season approaches, one question always seems to come up: when should people start decorating for the holidays?

For junior Amanda Schiavo, Christmas decorations should be kept up year-round.

Schiavo’s room is always decorated for Christmas, and she loves listening to festive music in the months before December. This annoys her family, so they had to come to an agreement.

“I’m first allowed to start putting up [Christmas] decorations and [listen to] music on the first of September,” Schiavo said.

Though most of Schiavo’s family prefers to start celebrating Christmas at the end of November, she got her five- year-old brother on the Christmas train.

“When we’re in the car, my dad sometimes lets him choose what music to play, and he’ll ask for Christmas music in June. Because he’s little, my dad doesn’t say anything,” Schiavo said.

Sophomore Luciana Gutierrez does not believe in celebrating early.

“I just think that if it drags out too long, it’s not special or fun anymore. It’s annoying.”

Gutierrez and her family will put up some of their Christmas decorations on Dec. 1. They purchase a Christmas tree before Dec. 20 and leave it up until New Years.

“For us, it’s a family tradition to burn Christmas trees,” Gutierrez said. “We’ll have a bonfire on New Years.”

Even though Gutierrez likes to keep Christmas in December, she and her family enjoy keeping their Halloween decorations up longer.

“We’ll decorate [for Halloween] on October 1 and keep that up for a while,” Gutierrez said. “I like the spiderwebs a lot. Also, there’s lots of parties, so it just lasts longer than Christmas for my family.”

For Schiavo, however, Halloween is not as special.

“At the beginning of October, we already have Christmas decorations up, and we’ll add Halloween decorations,” Schiavo said. “We’ll take them down right after Halloween.”