Don’t try to fight it!
I drove through downtown Ocala yesterday on my way to an afternoon meeting and saw Christmas displays set up in the windows of two different shops. I’m sure some people drove by the windows and scoffed at the fact that the decorations are out so early in the season just like one of my sorority sisters (we’ll call her “Scrooge Lady”) did in college.
My best friend and I and would hang holiday decorations outside of Scrooge Lady’s room while she was away at class.
It became a mini holiday war as Scrooge Lady got into the game and tacked notes to the bulletin board outside of our room that said things like “bah humbug.” This naturally encouraged us to hang up icicle lights and jingle bells around her door, only to find them stacked in a pile outside of our door a few hours later with another bah humbug-ish message.
Despite our best efforts, Scrooge Lady never fully immersed herself in the Christmas spirit, but she did say our holiday war was awfully fun and we laughed a lot, so that’s something, right? Just spreadin’ a little Christmas cheer!
(Did any of you guys ever have “dorm wars” with friends in college or sleep away camp? Can we bring them back in the real world? So fun!)
Even though I am starting to feel the holiday spirit grow around me, Ryan and I don’t decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving and I try my best to keep my Christmas CDs packed away until then as well.
This does not mean that I am above using the Pandora shuffle button to jump around my Pandora stations.
Should Pandora decide to randomly play a little “Carol of the Bells” by Trans Siberian Orchestra from my Rockin’ Holidays station, I’m not going to stop it. I consider that a little gift from Father Christmas.
Breakfast
Breakfast this morning started with a holiday-ish cup of coffee.
Peppermint mocha coffee + Unsweetened vanilla almond milk
I also made a batch of honey whole wheat pancakes.
I loosely followed my recipe for honey whole wheat pumpkin pancakes, but changed some of the measurements because we didn’t have any pumpkin on hand.
Yum!
Question of the Morning
- When do you start to get into the holiday spirit?
- Did you ever have a “dorm war” in college or at a sleep away camp where you’d go back and forth decorating or pranking a friend’s room while they were away?
Whenever I think about pranking someone while they’re away from their room, I cannot help but think of The Parent Trap. “Let’s Get Together, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!”
If you’ve never seen the original version of The Parent Trap with Hayley Mills – aka Miss Bliss from the junior high years of Saved by the Bell – I highly recommend it!
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We have to hold off until closer to December as we don’t have Thanksgiving in Ireland; randomly your just made me want a new pair of PJs and slippers! Festive ones perhaps!
We bought new stockings and decorations this week. It is taking every fiber of my being not to put them up. I can’t control myself much longer. It doesn’t help that my husband, Ryne, is 100 percent into Christmas, too. There is no one in my house to help restrain me!
I never knew it is possible to shuffle the stations on Pandira, I need to look into this! I love the original parent trap and was also obsessed with the Lindsay Lohan version (what happened to cute little Hallie/Annie?!). She was close to my age when that movie came out and I remember thinking she had the best wardrobe ever! Lol
Same here! I wanted to be Hallie so badly haha.
Totally agree with you on the Parent Trap with Hayley Mills! Such a good movie! Have you seen Pollyanna? She’s in that movie too and it does have something to do with the holidays. I’m getting into the holiday spirit now. I don’t celebrate Christmas but I do enjoy seeing the lights and hearing the music. Hanukkah for us starts at the beginning of December. I’m looking forward to it 🙂
i haven’t but i should watch it!
also, i’m not sure whether or not you’d be interested in this, but i’d love to feature a couple of guest posts with holiday hanukkah recipes in december sometime. if you’re interested and have a recipe you’d like to share, i’d love to feature you! let me know and we can coordinate if it’s something you might be interested in.
OMG I didn’t know that the original Parent Trap girl was MISS BLISS! Wow I got way too excited about that. I am TRYING to hold off on holiday cheer because I think it makes it so much more special if it’s limited to after Thanksgiving. But for some reason, it seems really hard to wait this year!
Me either! Mind blown!
I work part-time in retail at the mall (Bath & Body Works), so there is no escaping the early holiday onslaught for me. The store is already playing Christmas music! I just roll with it. And the Hayley Mills version of The Parent Trap is the ONLY one worth watching. Lindsay Lohan who?
I love Christmas. I am so ready to decorate, but my husband won’t let me until after Thanksgiving. I have my Pandora on shuffle, and the Christmas songs literally make my day. Carol of the Bells (before my back injury) and Wonderful Christmastime (Paul McCartney) are actually good songs to run to (at least for me).
I’m starting to feel the holiday spirit come out more and more as the days go by, but I usually really get into it the week of Thanksgiving. It means Christmas isn’t far off, shopping for Christmas presents has begun, and we usually decorate for Christmas the weekend of Thanksgiving.
And here I thought the red cups meant it was time to bust out the Christmas spirit 🙂
I love the holidays! I am definitely in the holiday spirit, but my hubby would kill me if I put up any decorations yet, so we wait until after Thanksgiving. But I did buy the reinderr car costume yesterday. I am soooo excited to put it on my car! 🙂
I think I need to step up my holiday game because I’m pretty sure everyone in the world, besides me, has a Christmas tree up right after Thanksgiving. My family waits until a few weeks before and my mom goes out and picks up a “reject” Christmas tree (missing giant chunks of branches etc.) because she feels bad no one wanted it.
that is adorable. 🙂 your mom rocks.
Canadian Thanksgiving has already come & gone, so it’s all about Christmas around here! The Christmas lights have been strung down our town’s main streets and the Santa Claus Parade is on Saturday night, so it’s pretty hard not to get in the spirit. We usually resist the temptation to decorate until late November although I do know of a couple of people who’ve already decorated!
I don’t normally get into the Christmas spirit until after finals, but life is too short! I’m going to embrace Christmas early this year, especially since my last final is at 6pm on December 22nd!!!
Love the original parent trap! It was on TV in the UK a few weeks ago with the new version straight afterwards. Bonus!
double the fun!!
All of my friends seem to hate when the christmas decorations go up early but I can’t seem to get enough of them! I’m that person that likes having them up until the end of January…when people start judging you 🙂
I’m with the scrooge lady…I really don’t care about Christmas at all. I buy presents and I don’t mind that but I don’t bother with a tree or decorating. I did once and it was enough for me my decorations haven’t seen light of day since. Too much effort for myself. I also LOATHE christmas music! And I also work every other Christmas (as a med lab tech in a hospital so we never shut down obviously). I was on nights last year and slept through the day and I am again this year (though it technically won’t count as I finish my last night Christmas morning it only counts when you start your shift on the day of). I am fine with sleeping though the day again. I’m sure I am in the minority but I had to get it out there.:)
haha no worries at all! i hope your christmas morning shift passes quickly and that you get a restful sleep! 🙂
We had a snowstorm here in the NYC area last evening, so this morning the entire drive to work felt like a winter wonderland! I couldn’t resist listening to Christmas music on the way to work 🙂 In my parents’ house when we were younger, the rule was always Thanksgiving and after is fair game 🙂
i read about that on cnn! that’s insane! stay warm, danielle!
I usually try to resist until after thanksgiving, too. But we had a snow storm yesterday in the northeast and I just could resist listening to Christmas songs on pandora during it!
I miss dorm wars!! My college roommate used to borrow things of mine without asking. Deep down I didn’t really mind but to “get back” I used to change her laptop screensaver to inappropriate animal pictures… Imagine a national geographic special on hamster reproduction.
We had an ongoing rooster alarm clock war when I was in university – everynight the alarm clock would be hidden in someones dorm, set to ring at an ungodly hour (3am rooster wake up call anyone?)
I tell ya, waking up to the loudest cockadoodledo in the history of cockadoodledo’s sure will get you out of bed quick! 😉
Christmas decorations are up down on our street already (we live in downtown on Main Street), & the majority of the storefronts are already donning x-mas trees & lights. They all look gorgeous, but I think it’s still a bit too early… I’m trying refrain from putting our lights up on our balcony until AFTER Thanksgiving… or maybe Thanksgiving night! LOL
It.is.so.hard.to.resist!!!!! I have been listening to some tunes but the decor won’t go up until after Thanksgiving…like Black Friday. I miss decorating our room and our holiday cheer! xox
me too! christmastime makes me miss room 12. 🙂
During the first year of being in my sorority they told us we could not decorate or really celebrate Christmas in anyway as a sign of respect for diversity throughout the house (for example, one of my sisters was Jewish). A lot of us were so bummed, especially as all of the other houses hung lights outside. To resist this idea all together one of my roommates went to a few stores and bought some Christmas decor and lights on sale. If we couldn’t decorate our house, at least our room could be decorated! One of the VPs of the house, noticed and wasn’t happy. Later that night my freshman pledge class and I attended a sisterhood on campus that was really special. We came home to a FULLY Christmas decorated house!!!! It was the best holiday surprise 🙂
I cannot wait to put Mariah Carey’s Christmas album on my driving-to-work playlist, I cannot get enough of that album!!! I think I should wait until December so I don’t get completely sick of it before Christmas day!
How can people not be excited about CHRISTMAS!?! I will watch Elf on repeat and buy my Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. I like to enjoy it as long as possible 🙂
elf is one of my all-time favorite movies!
I’m already listening to Christmas music. This whole season goes by way to quickly so after Halloween is over, the holidays are fair game! I also only decorate in ‘winter’ themes like snowmen and snowflakes and not Santa things or red and green so that I can leave everything up until the weather gets warm! But I do wait until after Thanksgiving to put up our tree.
Ah, The Parent Trap is such a good movie! I saw the one with Lindsay Lohan first–I really, really wanted to be her back in the day–and then my mom introduced the old one to my sisters and me. I usually wait until after Thanksgiving to start listening to Christmas music and baking Christmas cookies, but it’s difficult to ignore the holiday spirit until then. It seems like department stores have been in holiday full force since … Halloween?
Finally, someone who’s not complaining about all the holidays being celebrated ahead of schedule! What’s wrong with having love for all of them at the same time? I don’t decorate until Thanksgiving or December (depending on who is home for Thanksgiving) but I like when stores and radio stations start getting in the holiday spirit early. The holiday season has always felt happy and magical (that’s a lame thing to say lol) so I’m all for celebrating as much as we can!
Well I don’t celebrate Christmas – so while I’m not the PC police and I don’t mind when people wish me a Merry Christmas, I wasn’t entirely thrilled when my coworker put Christmas gel decorations all over my desk/cubicle (especially since they stained all my cabinets!).
Right after Remembrance Day, so in the next week for sure 🙂
I listen to Christmas music all year, but not publicly until November 1st. We put up out decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving (I want a lot of time to enjoy them). Thanksgiving and Christmas bring out a lot of the same feelings for me so I feel like I’m celebrating them both. Thanksgiving should get with the times and make some good songs 😉
Well, I wasn’t PLANNING on getting into the Christmas spirit yet, but it snowed here in CT yesterday. Apparently, late October/early November snowstorms are the new thing here (we had one last year on Halloween, too). Regardless, it was a little annoying shoveling the day after Election Day, but I’m not complaining about how pretty it looks! I think I’m suddenly ready for Christmas now.
My holiday spirits jump starts in, ummm, July! Haha I adore the holiday season. But we generally wait until mid-November to decorate! {If it was up to me, the stockings would remain hung all year and filled with random goodies for no reason!} We’re putting up our decorations next week because we want to enjoy them in the few weeks we’re home between holiday travel!! I’m so excited to have a tree out, wrap gifts, and blast the Straight No Chaser holiday Pandora station loud enough for the neighbors to hear 🙂
Yes! Dorm wars were so much fun. My roommate and I actually turned the power off on our floor one day. As we were running back to our room, the RA saw her but not me. So she denied it, but a week later, another friend and I called her pretending to be the RA’s boss and told her she was kicked out of the dorm, her parents were already called and were expecting her to come home, and she needed to pack her things. She started crying thinking it was real! We felt terrible. But now we laugh about it.
Another one, we somehow got the number to the call box downstairs. We also had full view of the area from our window. So when boys would come to visit their girlfriends (we lived in an all girl dorm), we’d call the box, and say really naughty things, and just watch the boys freak out! It was so much fun!
I make myself wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving because it’s tradition, but it’s definitely an exercise in restraint! Side note: It makes me sad that some people don’t understand that The Parent Trap with Lindsay Lohan is NOT the original!.
The original Parent Trap is my FAVORITE!!! Yessss!
We had the ultimate dorm war my freshman year. My building was one floor of girls and 2 floors of boys, so it was always boys vs. girls. Mostly it was decorating each other’s doors with embarressing pictures, but it got so far that at one point I had a broken window!
The Canadian Thanksgiving is in early October.. and I’ve been studying to Christmas tunes ever since!
I LOVE this post!! I used to be a Scrooge about not getting into the Holiday season too early, but then I realized: This time of year goes by SOOO fast as it is, so why not enjoy it to it’s absolute fullest? I’m like you and Ryan, though I don’t pull out the Christmas decor until after Thanksgiving, I’m definitely feeling the Holiday spirit around me, usually around or right after Halloween. So I say enjoy the Holidays as soon as you want, because it only comes around once a year!! =D
I’ve already surrounded to the holiday spirit. Our trees and garlands are up! I couldn’t wait any longer!
I love the original Parent Trap! An awesome movie and I often find myself quoting lines from it, which nobody ever understands. I appreciate that you appreciate the movie, as well!
I am already feeling the holiday spirit coming on…but it will definitely be in full force the week of Thanksgiving. And you can guarantee that I will have all of my Christmas decorations up the day after Thanksgiving! I can’t wait, but I also hope it goes by somewhat slowly since this is my favorite time of year!
I’m currently in the grinch-mode where I see Christmas stuff in stores and music playing and I think it’s waaaaaaay too early. But I suspect by this time next week – with Thanksgiving on it’s way – I’ll revert into complete panic mode and start racing around finding decorations and planning Christmas shopping lists. 🙂
I am right there with you!! Man as soon as Halloween is over, I’m dying to get the Christmas gear out, and literally the day after Thanksgiving I get the tree up 🙂 Can’t say I’ve listened to holiday music yet, but I’ve had the urge, and have done it many other years!! Christmas is just too exciting of a time, and I love the holiday spirit 🙂
The weekend after Thanksgiving is when I usually decorate. But I decorate for winter and not just Christmas. That way I don’t have to change it out as fast.
The Kidless Kronicles
scrooge lady…that’s a classic! At least she enjoyed it! My siblings and I still have prank wars….my sister moved in just down the street from us and I have a key to her house, she still hasn’t learned! There’s been everything from bubble wrapping beds, taping up shoes, and rearranging cupboards, to a cardboard cut out popping up everywhere! But, it’s all in good fun and we get a good laugh!
The Holiday bug bit me I think as soon as I saw the first Holiday commerical this year. I’m mostly done Christmas shopping and plan on wrapping the presents this weekend- only because I think my hands are going to be full with a newborn! I very much want to bust out our holiday decor, but since we are having Thanksgiving at our house this year I want to keep my fall decorations up.. and maybe coax my family into decorating the house for Christmas with me. Since I’ll either be 40+ weeks pregnant, or taking care of a infant 😉
I’ve been dabbing a bit into the Christmas music for about a couple weeks now haha! I started playing Christmas music to help me study for exams and last night I bought some candy canes and I have been wanted to watch Christmas movies for a few days now!
I have definitely seen the original Parent Trap! I am named after Haley Mills! It’s a classic!
it certainly feels like christmas here since it SNOWED yesterday into last night! I was certainly not ready for that! I popped in to Target yesterday and saw Christmas decorations which got me overly excited and resisted the urge to buy christmas decorations!
I usually get in the holiday spirit around Thanksgiving 🙂 it snowed yesterday here so that kinda got me more in the mood for Christmas haha