Minnesota is in the thick of an amazing unseasonable warm snap. Yesterday, November 15th, temperatures above 60 degrees were recorded, and my little internal winter-hater is in absolute heaven. Every day without 30-mph winds and slush puddles and my eyelashes freezing together on the half-mile walk into work is completely fine by me. That said…I’m a tiny bit bothered because it’s incredibly hard to get excited about Christmas (OMG) when it feels like September in Minneapolis.
Usually this time of year, I’m freaking out and attempting (and failing) to convince myself it’s too early for the Christmas tree, the Nutcracker Suite, and every pine-scented candle west of the Mississippi. Instead, I find myself going out without a coat and obsessing over my newest favorite indie band (do yourself a favor and go check out Lake Street Dive, they’re wonderful). It’s a bizarre and unprecedented reversal for me.
My mom and I spent the entire weekend together and started our Christmas shopping Friday and Saturday. Seeing stores decorated to the nines, hearing my very favorite versions of “Santa Baby” and “White Christmas” and admiring twinkle lights and garlands seemed so unseasonably inappropriate it legitimately screwed with my head. Didn’t stop me from checking half the people off my shopping list, though!
We spent Sunday outside replacing her fall mums and pumpkins with spruce tips and holly berries. I didn’t even have socks on, and for the bulk of the day we didn’t need jackets or gloves. The trees still have fall leaves on them, and yet we went to town with our own twinkly lights and sparkly pinecones. It’s SO weird.
This is the first year in my post-college life that the tree didn’t go up this weekend (evidence per “On This Day” via Facebook) and the first year I haven’t been on instrumental Christmas music since 11/1. What is happening to me?! Am I slowly Grinchifying in the presence of warm sunshine and record-breaking temps?! Have I just been too busy with everything else in life (Canada, Columbus, the plague, and now more travel tomorrow) to even notice it’s coming on Christmas?
HELP! Holiday crisis in the making over here. I’m actually going to be one of those people who doesn’t decorate until after Thanksgiving this year, and I don’t know how to feel about that. Maybe a peppermint mocha in one of Starbucks’ Scroogey cups (OMG THE HORROR AND SOCIOPOLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OMG OMG) will make me feel better…