Red posted a blog entry today that mentioned things she did on her staycation that included the following dozen or so preposterous words:

“Laughed at my neighbors for keeping their horrific xmas decorations up way longer than acceptable.”

(I didn’t REALLY count the number of words, what am I , weird?)

Well Red.

Well well well.

I thought this was something to write something about, it stirred something in me, kind of like churning butter.  Mnnn, butter….which is so damned close to ice cream, mnnn ice cream.  Mnnn, black forest ice cream.

Where was I?  Oh yes, Christmas decorations, and when it’s appropriate to take them down.

See, my thoughts on the subject go like this:

• If you do the hard work of putting decorations up, why on earth should they ever be taken down?
• If decorations should only stay up when they’re relevant to the holiday that’s being celebrated, shouldn’t they stay up until the next holiday comes around?

Then I realized that the next holiday after Christmas would be New Year’s Day, so I don’t have a leg to stand on in that respect.  But seriously, why take them down so soon?  Like before-now-soon?

Hell, it feels like Christmas was just last week.  You certainly shouldn’t be letting the air outta the old blow-up santa doll before you get over your turkey indigestion, that just seems WAAYY too soon.  So when then?

January 15th seems a little premature to me.  So does February 1st.  Plus February is so bloody COLD, who wants to be out there taking stuff down when it’s much warmer inside?

March here in Canada is the snow-hard month, so the Crimmas lights would make it nice and festive, especially when they’re buried under four feet of snow and glowing, which looks fully awesome.

And then April has Easter (if I remember right), so you could theoretically leave them up for Jesus’s REBIRTH, right?  (Or is it AFTERbirth?  Technically speaking, I’m correct.)  He’d be pleased with that, I’m sure.

May, well, May is a busy month for outdoor activities like gardening, and the ornaments give off lots of light so you can work late into the evenings planting petunias and flowers that you’ll have to weed all frikking summer.

And June, well, June is a great month to be outdoors and away from home as much as possible, so who wants to waste time taking down Christmas lights and big styrofoam snowmen.  Same with July, but July has all the fireworks, and the lights would go well with the fireworks as a backdrop.

Then August comes ’round and you’re thinking, “Well, I’m already over halfway home, and it’s closer to next Christmas than it is the past Christmas,” so you leave them up.

Then September comes and you’re fearing your decision to leave the decorations up makes you look crazy to your neighbors.  But then you remember your neighbors and their annoying loud backyard barbecues that went on till three AM every night for the past two months, so really, fuck them.  And you leave the lights up and on as bright as you can turn them out of spite through October and into November.

Then comes Rememberance Day, November 11, and all those old soldiers that live nearby probably have terrible eyesight and your gaudy display has probably become an easily visible waypoint for them to find their way home from the parades and memorials, so hell, you couldn’t take them down and fuck with a vet. And maybe the vets celebrate memorial day for like weeks after that, drinking at the legion with their old cronies and remembering Johnny who took a bullet up his ass so the kids these days could grow their hair long and messy and listen to their eyeProds.  So you think, “Heck, I’m going to support the Veterans even more than wearing a poppy by leaving the damn lights up.  Just for them.”

Then December finally comes, and hey, look, it’s Christmas again already, you could use a few MORE decorations up now!

So I guess what I’m saying here is that there’s no good reason to take them down.