Madeleine Coles
Life Editor
Dear Badvice,
I love Christmas, and I really want to start decorating for the holidays. But my roommates think it’s too soon. What’s the acceptable time to put your Christmas tree up?
Sincerely,
A Holiday Lover
Dear Holiday Lover,
You disgust me.
I’m going to stop you right at “I love Christmas” and say I very respectfully think you should get your head checked. I know, I know. It’s a “magical” time of year. Everything is covered in snow, and you drink hot chocolate, and you get presents, and you kiss under the mistletoe.
It sounds great in theory, but to be perfectly honest, Christmas is the absolute worst holiday.
In reality, Christmas embodies everything that any sane person would hate.
It’s cold; it’s icy; there’s too much traffic; there’s too many people; and entitled children run amok banging their heads against the floor of a Walmart because they think just because it’s Christmas, they should get any toy they want.
“But Christmas is all about loving each other and being kind, and the whole holiday season just fills me with warm fuzzies.” That’s what they tell you to distract you from the fact that Christmas is a capitalist dream complete with minivan moms bragging about how much money they spent on their children, and let me tell you, Carol, nobody cares that you got your six-year-old the latest iPhone.
But I digress.
In relation to the matter at hand here, I must say that it is never acceptable to put up a Christmas tree or decorate for the holidays.
Listen, I’m no financial genius myself, but even I can’t justify spending money on a tree that you’re going to put up for a month (maybe two if you’re a monster) just because it “looks pretty.”
And in order to make it look pretty you have to buy things to put on the tree. Ornaments and tinsel and angels and whatever the hell else people put on their trees.
At this point, you’re out a solid hundred bucks. You’d think that would be a great enough waste of money, but no. People don’t just need trees; they need their whole entire house to look like a department store explosion complete with vintage nativity sets, garland on any horizontal surface, and lights everywhere.
The lights, of course, are a financial burden of their own because people insist on leaving them on all day every day which ultimately costs them a fortune once the electricity bill comes around.
So, Holiday Lover, if you have any sense at all, you will skip the decorating this year and remember that you are a poor college student who does not have the time or money to waste on such a frivolous and ridiculous concept as a Christmas tree.
However, if you absolutely positively must have a Christmas tree, please, for the love of God, don’t put it up until after Thanksgiving.
Sincerely,
Badvice
Disclaimer: If you are currently drunk, easily offended, or just not very bright, I would like to remind you that THIS IS SATIRE. Please do not follow my advice, or you could end up living life like me. And your mother does not want that for you.
