Thanksgiving is behind us and so is Black Friday. We've already gone beyond Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday is looming.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
While the cool kids are cynical about Christmas, saying how they don't like Christmas music or blasting the commercialization of the holiday or the awkward ways businesses navigate around a holiday based on a religious figure, most of us enjoy this time of year.
Part of that is because we have fond memories and fun traditions associated with Christmas.
That's the focus of this column: The best Christmas traditions. Not based on which is most important, but which is most widespread and which brings the most joy.
There's an honorable mention list, too: Christmas sweaters. Christmas cards. Mistletoe (seems crazy, right?). Egg nog. Add anything that I left off.
But as my mentor Casey Kasem would say, let's start the countdown:
10. Christmas Eve. No pregame show on our holiday calendar equals this. In some ways, Christmas Eve tops Christmas, since it's a daylong buildup of excitement, rather than a morning explosion followed by a day-long reflection. Santa is coming! A holiday is here! What if it snows? Parents (and Santa) are busy wrapping gifts and getting ready.
9. Hanging lights. I separated this from decorating the tree, mostly because can be a hassle and dangerous (how many people make high-risk moves on a ladder to hook one more light over a hook?). Still, putting up lights means the holiday season is in full swing.
8. Leaving cookies for Santa. The final act of Christmas Eve for kids, the plate of cookies (or whatever your tradition) means its bedtime and Santa is about to come. If Christmas were an NFL game, the cookies-for-Santa moment is the last commercial before the opening kickoff.
7. Christmas movies and TV. "Elf." "Miracle on 34th Street." "A Christmas Story." "The Muppets' Christmas Carol." "It's a Wonderful Life." ("Die Hard?"). Of course you can watch these movies year-round, but for the 90% of us who are sane, these movies mark the Christmas season. So do the TV shows: "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Frosty the Snowman," "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." An entire branch of Hollywood is built around Christmas shows.
6. Christmas shopping. Black Friday is the height of Christmas shopping and while an increasing number of us rely on Amazon to bring gifts, this is the magic for many people. City sidewalks, busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style. That's not just "Silver Bells," that's the greatest Christmas moment for many people. And merchants.
5. Driving to see Christmas lights. Candy Cane Lane is a local thing and an every-town thing. In almost every area of the country, there's a place (often called "Candy Cane Lane,") where neighbors decorate their homes, yards, cars and roofs. The rest of us cruise by and gaze in wonder at what they've done. If you live on such a street, thank you.
4. Church services. If you're a regular attendee or someone who attends only at Christmas and Easter, there's something magical about this time of year. The hope of the coming Messiah. The church decorations. The nice people. The sheer number of traditional Christmas carols that are actually Christian hymns.
3. Kids meeting Santa. Whether it's sweet or horrifying, this is a classic. The mall Santa or the Santa at the party or the relative who dresses up every year are (virtually) all great. The sweetness of a child's excitement or the panic of the kid who only sees an oversized man in red reaching for them are both tremendous.
2. Decorating the tree. This signifies the official start of the season for most of us. A dramatic decline in real Christmas trees largely removed Step 1 (driving to a Christmas tree lot and paying entirely too much for a tree that doesn't fit in your house), but the rest of decorating – getting out the decorations out, hanging the stockings, listening to Christmas music, finding the remote control that you accidentally packed last year and blamed your spouse for losing – is fantastic.
1. Christmas carols. There is an entire genre of music built around a specific holiday! It's filled with traditional music (how many hymns do you listen to outside of Christmas season?), rhythm-and-blues, pop, country, hip-hop and every other kind of music. Instrumentals. Acapella. Even an over-the-top "American neoclassical new-age music ensemble" like Manheim Steamroller gets a listen. Of all the traditions of Christmas, this is the best because it has the widest impact. Other than the birth of Jesus, I mean.
Enjoy the full holiday season.
Reach Brad Stanhope at Bradstanhope@outlook.com.
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