October is spooky month. Everyone spends the entire month looking forward to Halloween, and on November first, Halloween is over and people move on. December should be Christmas month. Everyone spends the entire month looking forward to Christmas, and afterwards, they move on. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I don’t approve of Christmas music, sweaters, and decorating in November. Christmas is amazing, yes, but it doesn’t deserve more than a month.

It isn’t okay to listen to Christmas music until December first. It drives me crazy to listen to “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” and “All I Want For Christmas Is You” over and over again; extending this into November is absolute overkill. There’s plenty of good Christmas songs to last the month of December, but when you add more time to this it becomes too much.

Another example of this is Christmas sweaters. I love wearing a Christmas sweater just as much as the next person.  I have an entire tote of them at home, and by the time you’re reading this, I’ve been wearing my Christmas sweaters, listening to Christmas music, and my house is decorated for the holidays. The difference is the month. I’ll be doing these things when it’s socially acceptable in December. I don’t consider myself a Grinch because I truly do enjoy Christmas. What I don’t enjoy is rushing through Thanksgiving and skipping all the good things in November to rush into the Christmas season.

November is truly a beautiful month. The weather is amazing in November. You can play in snow one day, and it’ll be gone the next, so you don’t even have to shovel the driveway. There’s enough snow to have fun in without drowning in it. In early November, there’s still colorful leaves on the ground to take pictures of, which is perfect for taking walks and going on bike rides with friends. November is also when you don’t have to shave your legs anymore because it’s officially pants weather every day. November is one of the best months of the year and always gets overshadowed by Christmas the following month.

Can we just enjoy November while it lasts rather than skipping to directly to December after Halloween? Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. Leave Christmas in December the same way we leave Halloween in October and enjoy November.