Nobody wants to take their decorations down right after Christmas. You’re floating happily in a post-holiday haze, still slightly drunk on eggnog and stuffed full of glazed ham. After a few days, this wears off. However, you think to yourself, “I might as well leave the twinkling lights up till after New Year’s. After all, why not finish out December in the holiday spirit?”

But after New Year’s has come and passed, you’re back to work and then school and you’re just too busy to get up on that ladder and take everything down. Besides, what holiday would you decorate for in January? MLK Day? Presidents’ Day? The only president I have a wax statue of is Abraham Lincoln, and he’s staying in the bathroom.

Maybe by the time February rolls around you have another holiday to think about decorating for, but that’s a lot of effort for a holiday that you’ve been cynical about ever since Emily broke up with you over text because of “the Lincoln situation.” Besides, it’s still getting dark early enough that the lights look nice.

Really, by the time all the snow has melted and summer break has left you with enough time to commit to a big yard project you’re just as close to next year’s Christmas as you were to the last one. You might as well stick it out. So I did, and although some of my decorations are a bit worse for wear and I had to weather some difficult questions on Halloween, I’ve certainly saved myself quite a bit of effort. 

As “Feliz Navidad” begins to play on the radios once again and gingerbread house displays start appearing in the grocery stores, I can have the smug satisfaction of being the first on my block to have my house fully decked out. Now maybe my neighbor Brad can stop complaining about my paper mache statue of Santa Claus making sweet, sweet love to the Grinch.