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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It’s NEVER to early to start celebrating Christmas! My housemates and I have this big glass wall in our house that we cover in holiday themed GelGems (those squishy colorful gel stickers that stick to glass) and our Christmas ones just came in the mail! Obviously we’ve already put them up so our glass wall is COVERED in GelGem reindeer, Santas, snowmen, snowflakes…it’s GREAT! I’m all about celebrating Christmas early, especially since our Christmas break doesn’t officially start until the 20th!
I love this!! I start decorating ASAP! We didn’t last year, bc we were in such a small ugly apartment, but you better believe that this year I am READY!
I lived in my sorority house for 3 years and every year we would celebrate the holidays with our “Griswald Family Christmas.” It was my favorite day of the year as we would try to make our house as crazy as possible with lights and decorations while decked out in tacky sweaters and blaring Christmas carols through the house. I loved it!
Much to the liking of my husband, my kids and I are almost in full Christmas mode. I love the holiday!! It’s the most wonderful time of the year, no doubt! **The movie Prancer is my all time favorite Christmas movie. If you ever want to get into the spirit, take a peek at that one!!
I started decorating last weekend after a few beers! I couldn’t resist, our condo just seems alot cozier when I have the decorations out! I love it! However, I will wait until December to put the tree up 🙂
Ahem, it’s Hayley Mills…with the extra Y 😉
My mum got the spelling inspiration for my name from her!
ah! i’ll edit the post now. and i love that your mom got the spelling of your name from her!
I am trying so hard to resist the urge right now, and will not put up decorations or listen to music until after Thanksgiving, but I am with ya! November=Thanksgiving and that means the holiday season to me!! My fiance and I are heading to Williams Sonoma to get a bit of Holiday Cheer in this weekend and I can’t wait!! 🙂
We had a water fight in my dorm one night during my freshman year. That ended up being one of my favorite nights of college. We also had a lot of prank wars with the boys that lived on the floor below us. There are a couple videos from one of those nights that I’m sure I would still laugh at.. if I could fine them hah. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
We are already in the holiday spirit. We have begun to take down the Halloween decorations and right away we are putting up Christmas decorations. I know it is way early. But this way we can enjoy them longer. I love how joyful the Christmas seasons seems to feel. 🙂
Holiday spirit starts NOW! I love Thanksgiving because it still has the anticipation of Christmas. I just got married this past May, so this is our first holiday season as a married couple! Can’t wait to get our first Christmas tree 🙂
Hahaha! That is hilarious! I like celebrating one holiday at a time, but I don’t necessarily get mad if someone doesn’t. I am just excited for the holiday spirit & season! People tend to be nicer 😉
We always decorated our house for Christmas, Thanksgiving night, growing up and I continue that tradition now. I’m a one holiday at a time kind of person but LOVE Christmas!!
Man, as far as I’m concerned Christmas does not, does not, DOES. NOT. start until Thanksgiving is over. No way. I would be willing to somewhat alter this during college since we never had much time between Thanksgiving and finals, but I am 100% against celebrating Christmas earlier than necessary under any other circumstance. One of the more tragic holiday things I can imagine is being tired of Christmas-y things before Christmas, and that is not a chance I’m willing to take!
LOL! yes, getting sick of christmas cheer before christmas would be awful. i think your tactic is smart for you!
I started this week! I started listening to my Christmas station on Pandora, and ever since I have been in holiday mode! I can’t believe there is only 2 WEEKS until Thanksgiving!
I start to get into the holiday spirit right after Thanksgiving! I love Christmasssssssss and I can’t wait for it this year!!! I do though think that it is now socially acceptable to start listening to Christmas music!!
I’m already in the holiday spirit! And I may or may not have listened to my holiday Pandora station all day at work yesterday. 🙂
Omg I love your little “war” with your sorority sister! I loved decorating my dorm/apartment in college for Christmas! It always felt so much more homey!! And I wait until Thanksgiving too to get on the Christmas train- I think it makes it more special that way!
I am really getting excited for Thanksgiving. We are visiting relatives in Iowa for the holiday and I am not in charge of the whole meal this year. I have taken the lead the last 4 years and am more than happy to just make a dish or two.
Looking forward to trying out your pancake recipes! Just curious what kind of syrup you use?
Thanks!!
regular maple syrup!
I start getting in the holiday spirit mid november…. Or whenever the local radio station starts playing no stop christmas music 🙂
Julie- where do you get al of your delicious coffee? I drool every time I read the flavors!
all over the place! the peppermint mocha is made by godiva and i got it at publix (sadly you don’t have publix in PA!), but i also get a lot of them from the fresh market when i visit my parents. they have a HUGE selection of flavored coffees!
Lauren and Julie- Godiva is the BEST! Their recent seasonal flavors — caramel pecan, peppermint mocha…also coconut white chocolate and berry creme brulee this summer. Even their regular chocolate truffle– doesn’t taste artificial as far as flavored coffee goes.
I should probably mention i’m a sucker for pretty packaging: )
Emma
We had these paper bears on our room doors in the sorority house. The chairperson in charge of academics (can’t remember her title now) would put a sticker on yours if you made an A or B on a test. My roommates, all 4 of them, would take my stickers off and put them on their bears. They liked to tease me for studying too much in college! 🙂
I am already in the Holiday spirit! Once it hits November, I get more and more excited as the days go by until Christmas. I am glad to hear I’m not the only one – I was scolded by a family friend yesterday for posting a picture of a dog dressed as a reindeer on my husband’s facebook wall even though Thanksgiving hasn’t happened yet. I will never get tired of Christmas spirit!
My parents (currently, and for the past few years) have this holiday war with two of their best friend couples… they try to find the tackiest holiday decorations and decorate the others’ houses with them. It is so, so hilarious. The best one was when we knew one family was going to be on a cruise, so we staged an “Occupy Greenville” (name of their town) in that family’s yard the day after they left on the cruise, took picture and posted them on facebook so they would be freaking out that this was happening the entire time they were on their cruise. It was pretty funny =)
Ohh now I can’t wait to put on my holiday pjs! Is it too son?!
omg, she was Miss Bliss??? mind blown
Those dorm wars sound like a lot of fun!! I can relate to your bah humbug college roommate. I loved Christmas growing up until my parents split. After that, the holidays became a sad time of the year. Coming from the mental health field, I know that the holidays can be a very very difficult time for many. I remember in college hating Christmas music. I couldn’t listen to it because it made me feel sad. I’m happy to say that since I’ve met my husband and we’ve started our own family (no kids, just us & hopefully a puppy sometime in the near future!), the holidays are again a time of great fun, joy, and cheer for me. Now, you can’t get me to turn off the Christmas tunes. I figure, I can start decorating for Christmas and listening to carols as early as I want in order to make up for lost time. 😉
I feel like we should take it one holiday at a time. Definitely shouldn’t start celebrating Christmas until after Thanksgiving. However I had to refrain from buying Christmas decorations yesterday. Since the stores put them out so early its just so enticing.
My dorm wars were ALWAYS going on! I was an RA for two years and was constantly pulling pranks on other people, as well as having them pulled on me!!
I love the holidays! They can’t come soon enough for me!
I say, November 1st – January 1st = Holiday Season. Whichever one you want!
My husband likes to says he celebrates the incarnation all year long.
My family and I also like to hold off on all the holiday spirits until a couple weeks before Christmas! We are still focused on Thanksgiving for now and Advent. THEN we can start anticipating the birth of our Lord! 🙂 The secular festivities are still fun but we like to keep the joy of the holiday real and genuine.
No decorations until after Remeberance day (house rule). But tree won’t go up until Dec. 1st.
So excited for the holiday season though:)
Why try to resist the holiday spirit when you can embrace it?! Last year I did not get into the holiday spirit until the week before Christmas and definitely regretted it not celebrating sooner. This year I am already in the mood for the holiday festivities and loving it! I broke out my Christmas pjs and went through my Christmas album on Pinterest today! I can’t wait to put up my tree and decorations after Thanksgiving. However, despite the holiday fun, let us not forget the TRUE reason behind the season who offers the world’s greatest gift!!
Jules, I have a random question but do you add Splenda or any sugar to your coffee besides unsweetened almond milk? I use almond milk also but have to add at least 1 packet of Splenda to each cup of coffee I drink and wish I could cut it out!
i usually just use the unsweetened vanilla almond milk. i’ve used stevia before, but for the most part i really like almond milk + coffee. i usually make flavored coffees, though, so maybe that helps with the overall flavor?
I wait until after Thanksgiving too!
I always hold off on Christmas until day after Thanksgiving (although with the earlier and earlier Black Friday start times, it’s beginning on the night of Thanksgiving more and more often!). I’m not opposed to seeing Christmas stuff and looking forward to the holiday, but Thanksgiving is my favorite and I don’t want it to get “lost” in the shuffle of preparing and decorating for Christmas. So day after turkey day it is ON like Donkey Kong!!
I am always in the holiday spirit. It is taking every ounce of will power in me to not put my tree up. I am giving in next week.
I had a prank war with a friend one time. It started with him saran wrapping my car (like so thick that I couldn’t even get in) and putting a pizza on the windshield. So I went and sprayed shaving cream on his driveway to say “Pizza Man”. Then he put a huge dead fish under one of the seats of my car….. It ended there. Haha.
I’m only 17 and I grew up watching Parent Trap!
I’ve already started listening to Christmas music….i need to stop though before i get tired of it.
I’m so ready for the holiday season!!!! AHHHH!
Last year, we decorated the day before Thanksgiving…but I think I’ll decorate after TG.
We wait until after Rememberance Day (here in Canada). To me, we can wait to celebrate Christmas and other holidays and should use the beginning of November to remember those who died or risked their lives for us today.
A friend of mine had a stealth Halloween decorator come by her house. They would come by late at night and silently decorate their house with things like giant spiders, bats hanging from the trees, and carved pumpkins. It happened randomly for about two weeks. They still have no idea who it was, but her kids absolutely LOVED it. I thought it was great, too!
I LOVE CHRISTMAS and can’t wait until Thanksgiving to decorate! As for pranking- so much fun! We squirted water on a friend at camp when she fell asleep on a friends sleeping bag. She freaked out and was sooo apologetic. It was hilarious. We also one time dressed up in blood/gore make-up to fool our counselors at camp. Once we moved the camp directors truck to another place in camp.
When I was growing up we had girl vs boy pranks as teenagers. We would set alarm clocks in each others rooms. It started off being 8 alarms at the same time and turned into 8 alarms each set at a different time hidden in the room. Pure evil! Fun times, but man was I short on sleep during alarm wars (we would look for them and find them and re-hide them in each others rooms at 3am). My brother also had a rotten egg smelling bottle that he would hide around the house. So very gross.Then itching powder in beds-ouch! Nothing like a shower and sheet change at 3am. The boys would tie beetles and stink bugs on a string and throw them in our room and control them. We would lipstick and perfume their room, then they would string up our room with a mask in the middle hanging from the fan. It would take us 3 hours to un-string everything. It was mass craziness, but also tons of fun. Four teenagers is more than any parent can really handle at once!
I don’t allow myself to do too much holiday stuff before Thanksgiving although I was working on a Christmas craft project recently that made me want to put on the Christmas Pandora station. I refrained, however. 🙂
I try not to get too wrapped up in the holidays until after Thanksgiving. That being said, I kind of love that Starbucks rolled out their holiday cups and drinks already!
When the xmas tree goes up Christmas begins- so usually around December 1st! It’s so close!
Miss Bliss?! Why didn’t I ever make that connection!? Oh man….. Totally see it now! Did you read about the “girl meets world” rumors?!
I don’t decorate the house until after thanksgiving but I have already wrapped more than half my gifts 😀
Oh my gosh, you brought back a college-dorm-prank memory that I had been suppressing. Some guys we knew came in the middle of the night, while my roommate and I were sleeping, and papered over our door from the outside. Then, they stuffed shredded paper between the paper wall and our door. So, when I opened the door to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I was showered with shredded paper and then had to punch through a paper wall to get out. Funny now but less so when you have to pee. 🙂
In my parents neighborhood they used any excuse to prank one another (holidays, b-days, tuesdays lol). The best was the year neighbor #1 trash picked a 5 foot tall nutcracker and left it in the back of neighbor #2’s car. Neighbor 2 then took it to my parents and left it in the bushes looking in a window. My parents took it back to the neighbor 1’s house (can’t remember what they did). And then neighbor #1 took it back to the house he garbage picked it from. This all went on over the course of a month. I can’t imagine throwing something out and having it show back up after a month. In my current neighborhood a few of the neighbors have started a decorating competition. We each decorate for Christmas and we pick a day that we go house to house and everyone has food and drinks. Then at the last house we vote and decide who wins best decorations.