Since 2020, Christmas Comes Early at My House

Having a pandemic baby has made me a "put the Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving" person.

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On November 1st, 2020, my husband and I put up our Christmas tree just days after our pandemic baby turned 7 months old.

You might be thinking, Oh no, they’re those annoying “early Christmas” people. And you’re technically right. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s that true joy can be hard to find—and that creating our own joy is invaluable.

Me taking a #ChristmasTreeSelfie as I write this post

Growing up, we were strictly a “put the Christmas decorations up right after Thanksgiving” family. Truthfully, we didn’t really celebrate Christmas for the first eight years of my life because we were living either in Russia or Cuba—both communist countries whose official religion was atheism.

But despite this, Cuba’s roots in Catholicism and Russia’s roots in the Russian Orthodox Church still meant that many families celebrated something resembling the Christmas we have here in the U.S.

In Russia, which is where most of my childhood memories lie, we had a Christmas tree and our own version of Santa called Ded Moroz (literally “Grandfather Frost”). We even had a Christmas dinner, but the whole thing actually revolved around the New Year. The family dinner happened on New Year’s Eve and we kids weren’t opening presents until midnight or the morning of New Year’s Day for those who actually fell asleep (not me!).

In Cuba and Latinx culture, Christmas is primarily celebrated on Christmas Eve with what we call Noche Buena (literally “Good Night”). That’s when the entire family gets together for a big Christmas Eve feast. And best of all, Latinx kids get to stay up until midnight and open ALL of their Christmas presents at once. You bet I loved that!

I don’t remember anything in my childhood before we moved to the U.S. in 1994 that indicated when we would put the tree up in either country, but I remember that our landlords put their tree up on Thanksgiving weekend, and I guess that’s what stuck. From that time onward, that’s what my family of origin did, too.

I stuck to this tradition when I went to college and throughout my adulthood. The only thing that really changed was that I insisted on buying myself a real Christmas tree instead of the fake trees we always had growing up. I lived in New York City after age 18, which made a lot more sense than when I was in Florida as a kid and teen.

I insisted on a natural Christmas tree after moving back to Florida at age 30 and meeting my husband, too. But then in 2019, when I was pregnant with the fetus who would eventually become our son Rio, I researched natural versus artificial Christmas trees and came away with the knowledge that natural isn’t always better. There are plenty of pros and cons to both—and yes, artificial Christmas trees can be eco-friendly if you keep them for at least 10 Christmases.

So that year, we decided to get my first fake Christmas tree as an adult and I fell in love with it.

My favorite part about our Christmas tree is that the lights are already on it (yay!) and, even better, you can switch between different light modes. Since my husband grew up a multicolor lights person and I came from a strictly white lights family, we finally settled the debate by putting our Christmas tree on a setting that interchanged the two lights every minute or so.

Still, that year, we stuck to the post-Thanksgiving Christmas decorating like most people I know. Well, people who celebrate Christmas, of course. Even though we’re both very, very atheist, somehow this tradition still made sense.

And then came… 2020.

I don’t want to go into the pandemic and having a baby and all that right now (but you can read about my experience with giving birth in March 2020 here), but you can probably imagine that it was a really fucking hard year being a new parent in complete isolation.

None of us had a village back then, and everything about those early newborn and infant months was made 1000 times more difficult because I couldn’t even ask a friend to hold my baby so I could take a nap or just get a hug from another mom who’d tell me, “it’s ok, this is normal.”

For Halloween, we couldn’t do anything or see anyone for fear of getting sick, so all I managed was splurging on mommy & me costumes and taking some cute photos.

As someone whose favorite holiday is Halloween, this was incredibly depressing. So as October ended, I remembered one of my best friends telling me that her mom always enjoyed putting the Christmas tree up early when my friend was a kid because it meant more days for them to enjoy the twinkly lights and delights of the holiday.

And so, I suggested that we put our Christmas tree up early that year since it was just such a shitty year. Adam agreed, and a new family tradition was born!

Rio on 11/4/2020, just days after the tree went up

I honestly didn’t expect us to become one of those families.

Growing up, I remember everyone rolling their eyes whenever we found out someone had put their Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving. We all thought it was much too early, and people often lamented that the holidays seemed to be coming earlier each year. (Hello, PSL in August!)

But I don’t really remember forming that thought independently of other people. It seemed to be more of a collective cultural understanding that you don’t put up Thanksgiving decorations before November 1st and you don’t put up Christmas decorations until Black Friday is over.

It wasn’t a conscious decision I ever made, and I wonder how many of us have ever really thought about this on our own.

Maybe you’re big into Thanksgiving or you’re a diehard real Christmas tree person, and that’s totally cool. But I was all for it once I realized that we could add some cheer to our house earlier in the season. And I still am!

Since 2020, we have remained the family that puts up their Christmas tree early and I have ZERO regrets.

Someone came to our house recently and was surprised, “Oh! Your tree is up already!” This has come up in conversation a few times, too. And each time, I tell the story of our terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year—and how much joy it brought and continues to bring us to decorate for the Christmas holiday early.

This year, I’ve been thinking back to what my friend said all of those years ago about how fun it is for kids to see lights and decorations all around for weeks and weeks. And I think about how tough this year has been for me.

So, yes, Christmas now comes early in my house. Maybe you’ll think the collective consciousness is right on this one and that it is too early for my Christmas tree to light up my house. But you know what? As the great Marie Kondo says, this brings me joy.

Join me in conversation… I’d love to hear your stories. Was your family an “early” Christmad decorating family, or did they wait? Have you kept up your origin family’s traditions or formed your own as an adult with your own family? And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, what do you do to bring joy and cheer into your home this time of year? I’d love to hear from all of you!

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Talk soon,
Irina (she/her) - raising a March 2020 gen alpha kid