Decorating for Holidays in the South

Here in the South, we subscribe to a particular enthusiasm for holiday decor. Halloween decorations go up in late August, early September where they remain throughout the month of October. You better believe that the minute the clock strikes midnight on November first, everyone pulls out the big guns for Christmas.

At midnight on the first day of November, I noticed people in my southern neighborhood tearing down the remnants of the Halloween that had occurred just hours ago in order to ring in the yuletide. They were ready to display the baby Jesus before they had even bothered to put away all of the bags of whoppers littering their hall tables.

When I awoke at 7 a.m., my neighbors were pulling down putting up a seven foot tall Santa Clause on their roof. Did they think he would serve as the neighborhood watch until Christmas?  To put a cherry on the sundae of decor they had already created, they lined their driveway with candycanes, and even tried to get a little exotic, putting up a blow up Palm Tree adorned with lights. It's like Clark Griswald on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, but somehow, someway, it is even worse.

They go overboard with the lights, the colors, and even the schemes.  The bigger, the better. The brighter, the better.  The louder, the better. It is enough to drive the sanest of souls into the comfort of a snug, white straight jacket. 

It isn't just the one house either.  It is the whole area. I've never seen such an enthusiasm, so many people drunk with holiday spirit. The Christmas carols start playing in the stores on November 1. The small towns put up Happy Holiday banners. I've even started getting Holiday cards already.   

It isn't that I mean to be a killjoy. I'm all for celebrating the holidays. However, I also think there happens to be a 'too much, too soon' clause in the commandments of Holiday Decor.  Surely there are commandments of holiday decor? 

I'm starting to suspect that the penchant for decorating early is purely southern.  When I go to visit my northern relatives for Thanksgiving, they often still have pumpkins, gourds, and hay laying out in the yard. A suggestion of December holiday decor is out of the question.

So tell me, are they putting the decorations up early where you live? or do they hold off? Because if they hold off, I might just need to move.