Thanksgiving is over, bring on the Christmas music
Thu, 12/04/2025 - 5:03am
admin
By:
Alex Malm
As I mentioned in my column last week, I am not impressed by the sudden shift of stores, and people in general, to playing Christmas music before Halloween is even over.
In my opinion, we do not need to be buying our Christmas presents on the same aisle as our discounted Halloween candy.
But Thanksgiving is now over, and it means one thing: It’s time to celebrate Christmas in full force.
As it turns out, my wife and I may be the only ones in both of our families who haven’t decided to start celebrating Christmas early.
Last week, I mentioned how my family would always put up our Christmas tree and decorations on the weekend of Thanksgiving. So I was shocked to find out that my parents and sister had plans the weekend before Thanksgiving to put up the tree back home in Rhode Island.
On Thanksgiving morning, I asked my mom what they were up to. She told me they were putting up the Christmas tree.
Ever since I could remember my family always put up the tree on Thanksgiving weekend. Not Thanksgiving Day. Not the night before. The weekend of.
I suppose when we were younger it was a way to have a semi inexpensive family night. My mom would make calzones and other appetizers, and we would all hangout.
As we got older, it was a way to make sure we had a family day in the hectic rush of life.
I suppose it made sense for the change in plans though. My cousin’s daughter’s second birthday would be celebrated at a Christmas-themed amusement park in New Hampshire, so the tradition of putting up the tree on Thanksgiving weekend would have to be slightly modified. They had planned to do it the weekend before.
This leads to the reality that while traditions are important, they can also be modified.
For example, for years my wife and I just essentially celebrated Thanksgiving with the two of us. It is extremely expensive to travel during Thanksgiving and to add to the equation, my wife used to work a job on a holiday rotation. In order to get Christmas off, it meant working on Thanksgiving.
The first couple of years we moved back here, the two of us just had our own thing going on.
This year however, my wife had the long weekend, and we decided to invite my in-laws and sister-in-law over for Thanksgiving.
We spent all last week getting the house put together and made a feast. We played my new-found obsession, Phase 10, and watched football on the couch.
Some traditions can’t be broken, though.
My mother-in-law is an avid reader of the Mankato Free Press, their hometown paper. She has read the paper likely everyday since she was an adult or potentially even longer. She is now in her 70s.
On Thanksgiving, one of her traditions is to go through all the ads and inserts in the paper to see what the big sales are.
Many years ago, when I was first dating my wife, I remember us going and buying the paper on Wednesday night when it would come out with all the ads.
When her parents came on Thursday morning, she had the Free Press, which she of course picked up on her way out of town at none other than Kwik Trip, along with a copy of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
This weekend will be the start of a modified tradition for us.
Since moving back to Minnesota, my wife and I have taken on the tradition of attending various tree lighting ceremonies near us.
There is one this weekend, which we have attended the last few years. Hot cocoa, cookies, and a romantic evening typically have been in the cards for us during this particular tree lighting ceremony.
But with limited weekends before we go to Rhode Island for Christmas break, and a desire to get our Christmas card photo taken in front of a tree with our dog, we decided to ask one of our close friends if she wanted to do a photo shoot and bring along her four-legged daughter.
Turns out the weekend we will be doing it is this weekend. To add to the mix, my sister-in-law who was here on Thanksgiving asked us when we wanted to attend the European Christmas Market, which happens to be next door to where the Christmas tree lighting is.
If you have never been, I would highly recommend it.
Needless to say, this weekend we will be celebrating Christmas, but with a couple of more house guests tagging along with us.
I hope everyone has a great holiday season.
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