Deck the halls, eventually

With an earliest-possible Thanksgiving this year, there are more days than ever before Christmas. That leads to this question: Do you want the longest possible duration with which to enjoy your holiday decorations -- or is the three weeks-plus-change enough?

Likely, you've already made your decision, whether you realize it or not, depending upon whether you crashed for the weekend or spent your non-shopping hours unearthing the ornaments, untangling lights and wrapping the mantel in pine boughs. For many families, this is like muscle memory: Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge mean Must Put Up Tree -- whether it's an early or late turkey day.

In our household -- which, when indoor holiday decor is concerned, becomes my household -- the decision was a bit of a roller coaster. Thanksgiving night, when everyone had gone home, I declared that I felt not the least bit Christmasy and was weighing the consequences of taking a year off decorating. I got no argument.

But then the morning dawned, and I'd slept, and there was snow and turning the holiday corner seemed possible. And yet, I realized this didn't HAVE to be done now. That I could, more or less, chill out for the weekend. One outcome of an early Thankgiving is a five-weekend December, and isn't Dec. 1 plenty soon enough for decking the halls?

A Star Tribune poll online suggested that I wasn't alone, with the greatest proportion of respondents, about 4 in 10, replying that they kicked back. The rest divvied up their weekend between shopping, traveling and, yes, decorating.

The irony, of course, is that most years, I look around my bedecked and bedazzled house and think: All this work and beauty for so little time. This year, when I could have milked my clever "stacked-books trees" for all they're worth, I chose to flip through some magazines in front of the fire.

There's time. There's this weekend. And the frippery will remain up until the weekend of Jan. 5 and 6, which works out to five whole weeks. I am at peace with my decision.