When you’re a kid, post-Thanksgiving was a magical time. The Christmas lights came out, hot cider and frosting-covered pretzels were created and the tree appeared. It was the Spirit of the Season. It wasn’t until much later did I realize it didn’t just happen.

Parents: “Don’t you know how HARD I work to create these stupid beautiful childhood memories??

Kids: “Nope! Haha! Make me a gingerbread house!”

At our house, the first part of “the season” starts well before Thanksgiving. I do my traditional part in fending off Christmas from attacking our house. My wife’s philosophy is if any Target anywhere in the world has up Christmas items, it’s officially Christmas.

Holiday Decorating Tip #1: It’s NOT OK to spray your wife in the face with the “bad cat” water bottle when she begins to hum It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas seven minutes after storing away the plastic pumpkins. That’s not to say it isn’t effective. I should replace the water with eggnog and I’d probably get away with it.

Speaking of which, eggnog is so delicious that it has the suffix “nog” and people are still like, “Yep. I’ll drink that.” It could be called “eggsnot” or “moist blubber” and people would still drink it. But try and put “nog” at the end of anything else and people will think you’re crazy.

You (at a Christmas party): “That’s traditional beefnog. Have a drink.”

Grandma: “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

I am undeterred in my quest to protect my house and sanity from the likes of Michael Buble and Alvin and the Chipmunks until at least Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, we have children and now it seems the only reason my wife wanted to have them in the first place was to spawn Christmas minions.

Me: “Look, just because it’s the day after Halloween doesn’t mean it’s Christmas.”

Everybody else in my house singing the carol: “Why Does Daddy Hate Christmas?”

Me: “I don’t hate Christmas! I just don’t think we need to celebrate it while we still have Halloween candy.”

Kids: “Dad hates Christmas!”

Wife: “Why would you tell the children you hate Christmas? Now hang my billboard-sized wreath with this tiny nail.”

The volume of boxes of Christmas lights and decorations you’re forced to keep each year will turn your garage into a Home Depot. I’ve had to hire holiday staff to keep up with the requests and now I can’t get Al to stop doing donuts with the forklift. If you’re a new homeowner, you will be provided 10 old boxes full of Christmas decorations being held together with flimsy packing tape. As you live there, you’ll accumulate more and more boxes until you’re forced to move and start the process all over again. Judging by all the places you have Christmas stuff hidden away, it’d be easier and less painful retrieving all of the Infinity Stones.

After retrieving the 47 boxes from the A) garage B) attic C) basement closet D) crawl space E) Christmas nook and F) Holiday realm, everyone is so excited they don’t notice or care dad is in a corner somehow needing nine hernia surgeries or a Bud Light. Next you hire a Sherpa guide and a team of oxen to locate and carry the 400-pound artificial tree to its rightful place in the living room.

Wife: “No, not that place. No, the other place. The OTHER place. Why are you not listening? Will you just move the bookshelf, this wall and the garage to the other side of the house? That will make the tree sparkle just right. There. That wasn’t so hard. Get up.”

At holiday parties, fathers can be found gathered around the tiny beer cooler and exchange war stories, showing the many artificial needle wounds inflicted putting the thing together.

“She said they weren’t spread out enough,” one father will sob, showing his bloody hands wrapped in gauze.

“I know,” the next will say, only stumps remaining.

Against your will your house will be transformed. Perfectly good kitchen and bathroom towels will be replaced with the icon of a Santa, snowman or reindeer. Wooden planks adorned with snowflake glyphs mysteriously appear as if Nicholas Cage would be appearing at any moment to flip them over to read a map leading to a historical treasure. And you’re going to sit there and take it. If it was up to men, we might place the ornament our parents gave you for Christmas in 1997 instead of an actual gift on a long-dead houseplant. Charlie Brown had the right idea.

Holiday Decorating Tip #2: Ornaments should NOT be tossed onto the tree like candy at a parade, not even if you land them near the top where it’s hardest and earn you the most points.

It’s a magical time of year.

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Kelly Van De Walle can be reached at

vandkel@hotmail.com.