There was a time, not so long ago, when I counted myself among the legions of citizens who grew irate at the opening of the Brown Thomas Christmas Shop which, in recent years, seems to crop up in mid-August, a decidedly un-festive time of year.
“Sure, we’ll be sick of Christmas by the time it comes around!” I would declare, to anyone who would listen, while also wishing that my parents would reconsider their “the tree goes up on Christmas Eve” stance.
Of course, the date the Brown Thomas Christmas Shop opened was entirely irrelevant to me; while there may well be shoppers out there who are willing to spend €60 on a festive snow globe, I am not one of them. The Christmas Shop wasn’t opening for me, in August or in any other month.
I thought of this – my ire at the slow forward-creep of Christmas – as I lay in bed earlier today (I am rudely awoken at 4am these days) and scrolled through Instagram, spotting broadcaster and journalist Louise McSharry erecting her powder-pink Christmas tree in her newly-decorated living room.
“I’m just putting this up for content!” she assured her followers, while I watched, consumed with jealousy, as she posed next to its candy-floss branches.
The thing is, 2021 has not been a barrel of laughs (even as I acknowledge that, personally, it brought me a lot of happiness). It seems only right that we bring forward the commencement of Christmas this year, of all years – the better to wring the most festivity possible out of the season.
It’s also an opportunity to make up for last Christmas, which was, for a lot of us, mired in quarantine quibbles and questions about who we could – or should – be within six feet of, indoors and mask-free. That’s not to say that Christmas 2021 is entirely without those questions, more that we’ve become more and more used to a world in which Covid concerns are de rigueur.
As mentioned, my childhood home was one in which Christmas started late – although I’m sure my Mum would argue that it did not start late, it started right on time. It ended right on time, too, with each vestige of Christmas removed and packed up in the box for the attic on January 8th. (That’s not to say that the box went into the attic on January 8th; that was listed on my Dad’s neverending to-do list, and was frequently left out until September, at which point my Mum would decide there was no point in putting it up now.)
Theirs is a tradition I stubbornly carried on for many years, once I’d moved out – although as to why, I didn’t know then and I absolutely do not know now. In recent years I’ve taken to putting up the Christmas tree and associated decorations at the start of December; now that I live in the US, I am taking even more liberties and will be festooning the house in tinsel in time for Thanksgiving.
I will admit that 2021 feels like a celebratory year for our family, and perhaps that has a lot to do with my desire to Christmas-ify the gaff sooner, rather than later. This time next week, my parents will be in the US, and what better background for a family reunion – after almost two years of being separated by an ocean and a travel ban – than the twinkling lights of a pre-strung fake Christmas tree?
TL;DR – Let the people have their early Christmas. Haven’t we had little enough to be celebrating over the past two years?!
A purchase worth sharing
I have recently found myself obsessively straightening out the fitted sheet before getting into bed at night, only to find myself lying on oodles of creases a mere 60 seconds later. So I Googled the problem and found these rather 50 Shades-looking straps which keep the sheet taut – or, at least, taut-er than without them – while you roll around happily.
Apologies to my sister, who offered to change my bedsheets for me as I recovered from surgery, and wrestled with the sheet for quite a while before realising the lengths to which I had gone to keep them firmly affixed to the bed… It doesn’t help that our mattress is quite possibly filled with iron plates and incredibly heavy. Sorry, Bea!