The Beginning of Christmas

Christmas is upon us, even though it is only the 30th of November. I see decorations everywhere and the 24-hour Christmas music radio station has already begun to broadcast. I think I may have begun to unlike Christmas somewhere along the way. I hate that the stores prey on a person's need to have their house decorated in the latest holiday fashion and set up displays of toys, household goods and As-Seen-On-TV items in such a way that consumers feel they just have to have them.

I want to take Christmas back. I want to take it back from Overstock.com and Amazon and Wal-Mart. I want to peel it away from Kohl's and Macy's and even Hallmark. I want Christmas to be about Christmas. I want to read A Christmas Carol with my family, make paper garlands, bake gingerbread men and recount the story of Christ's birth — all without feeling as though there aren't enough presents under my $65 tree and there aren't enough lights covering the front of my house to see it from space.

So this is my plan. I am going to love Christmas again. My kids and I are going to make homemade ornaments that shed glitter and leave my fingers burnt from hot glue. We are going to string popcorn and cranberries. We will be satisfied with the presents under our tree and happy to have a family to celebrate with. We will bake mountains of cookies and take them to our neighbors while we sing Christmas carols completely off-key until they offer us hot chocolate just to shut us up. We will take a drive to admire the effort everyone else has put into their bazillion house lights and we will sit together in the evenings and read Dickens — biting our lips when Ebenezer Scrooge gets his visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past.

I am breaking out the ridiculous holiday pins and the red and green hair ribbons and I am taking back Christmas for my family. I hope you do as well.