I love Christmas Creep. You know what it is. It’s the Christmas carols playing on the radio since before Thanksgiving. It’s the lights that have been up since Halloween. It’s the house that I walked by the other day in the dark. I fell in love with the owners right away. You see, they had their Halloween spiderwebs up with Christmas lights underneath. Pure joy.
I also love the baking. I mean, come on, who doesn’t like baking? I have type 1 diabetes and eat a gluten free diet that incorporate large quantities of veggies and fruits, and I still like baking. I may not eat a lot of it, but the smell – the sight – the taste of baking is just so lovely.
I always used to enjoy December. Now, that enjoyment has bled over into November. I like music. I like lights that brighten up the growing darkness in the evenings. I like warm houses and fires. I like good food. And up here in Canada, Thanksgiving is over by mid-October. After that, the fall gets increasingly wet and cold and cold and wet. Did I mention it’s cold and wet and dark up here? Yes, I may have. So I love Christmas. I need Christmas.
I also find Christmas to be a lovely part of our home routine. We can do so much for Christmas in November. We can have the entire month to leisurely create homemade gifts for our family. We make our own homemade cards and get them all ready to send out on December 1st. We create a picture book every year at the beginning of November, created for the family from my daughter. We do this in multimedia pictures, and she writes the story. There’s no time in December to do that. This year, we’ll be baking a lot, starting next week – we’re donating a lot of goodie baskets to charitable causes this year, and they’re all due by early December. November’s a great time to bake.
Of course, like just about everyone, what I don’t like is the Christmas stuff. I’m not overly fond of buying large quantities of stuff in mass market stores. I prefer homemade crafts, jellies, and Etsy. I don’t really need to see Christmas and Halloween competing for shelf space.
But you know what? I like Christmas Creep, overall. It’s an opportunity to brighten a dark and rainy month, and it brings cooking and crafting joy to my family.
I shall now go and hide my head in a paper bag. That is all.
Image Credit: euwucha