When does the Christmas season actually start? Well in order to answer this controversial question I first had to collect a little data. In the poll that I created the people were asked whether they thought Christmas started after Thanksgiving or after Halloween. The results from that poll were uneven – 70% of people said that the holiday season started after Thanksgiving while 30% of people said that it started after Halloween. 

In order to figure out why people chose the way they did, I had to go around and ask a few people to get more information about their thoughts on the subject. First I decided that I had to get into the minds of that 30% of people because personally I am in the 70% Soni really wanted to know their reasoning behind starting the season so early.

The first interview I had was with Mrs. Hummel of Cape Henry Collegiate. When asked if the holiday season started after Halloween or Thanksgiving she told me Halloween. Her main reasoning was that it has always been a family tradition of theirs that her boys love, they begin decorating as early as possible and go all out with the decorations.

I interviewed a few people outside of Cape Henry to get more diversity in the responses. I asked Gabby San Souci a student at Old Dominion University class of ’23. Gabby believes that the holiday season begins after Thanksgiving, mostly because in her family they don’t really go all out with the Christmas decorations “we usually just put up a tree and call it a day”. Her real response to the question was that it didn’t really matter when it started to her but if she had to choose it would be after Thanksgiving. 

One other person that I just had to interview that wasn’t a student at Cape Henry Collegiate was Dawn Clark, a Cape Henry parent. My reasoning behind wanting to interview her for this was simple, last year decorating for Christmas just kept getting put off to a later date until it was Christmas Eve and she realized we still had yet to decorate anything so long story short we didn’t decorate until Christmas eve. This year was different, the decorations went up the day after Thanksgiving. I asked her when she thought the holiday season actually began and she told me that the season started after Thanksgiving and last year was just a fluke. 

After asking all my questions and gathering the information I needed, I came to the conclusion that there really is no true answer to when the holiday season actually begins. It is all a personal preference. The holiday season is a time for giving and a time for being with the ones you love most, if you look at it in this way as long as you have the ones you love around you to begin the holiday season it truly does not matter when you start. With that being said, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year, enjoy this wonderful season with the ones you love.