dyker heights christmas lights full 360 vr
CNN  — 

It’s a debate as old as the holidays themselves. When, exactly, do you deck the halls? After all, there are two months from Halloween to New Year’s; a whole entire holiday – hi, Thanksgiving – in between; and myriad ways to mistime your holiday decorating mission.

Some people go whole hog as soon as the pumpkins rot. Others, well, they’re a little bit more conservative with their cheer.

Two CNN writers on these opposite ends of the holiday spectrum hash it out.

  • Delaney
  • Delaney My apartment is officially holly and jolly
  • AJ
     
    DELANEY
  • AJ
     
    It’s not even close to Thanksgiving!
  • Delaney …and?
  • AJ
     
    It’s too early for this. Have you no respect for tradition?
  • AJ
     
    You’re like those craft stores that stock Christmas trees in August
  • Delaney Wow. Rude.
  • Delaney Listen…
  • Delaney The matriarch of the holiday season — and my personal lord and savior — Mariah Carey released “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” objectively the greatest Christmas song ever, on October 29, 1994. HENCEFORTH making it socially acceptable to put up your Christmas decorations a full month before Thanksgiving.
  • AJ
     
    Praise be.
  • Delaney Praise be.
  • AJ
     
    I don’t want to run afoul of the Christmas Queen herself, but I feel like “getting excited about Christmas in your soul” and “lugging out your tinsel boxes” are two totally different things!
  • AJ
     
    Plus, holiday reds and greens really clash with the whole rustic Thanksgiving vibe.
  • Delaney If you want a rustic Thanksgiving vibe you can go to Cracker Barrel.
  • Delaney But if you want to come home at the end of a long work week and bundle up in a winter wonderland, you. Put. Up. Christmas lights!
  • AJ
     
    What will the neighbors think?!
  • AJ
     
    You really think they’re going to be okay living next to a full inflatable reindeer menagerie weeks before Christmas?
  • Delaney Hmm.
  • Delaney I think it’s socially acceptable to decorate the inside of your house as early as you want after Halloween…
  • Delaney But I can see the case for holding off on the outside.
  • AJ
     
    Our modern calendar has given us a very tidy window of decorating opportunity
  • AJ
     
    UP at Thanksgiving. 🦃
  • AJ
     
    DOWN at New Years. 🎉 On with our lives.
  • Delaney In the words of Mariah herself, “Time is not something I acknowledge.”
  • AJ
     
    AGH.
  • AJ
     
    You can’t just go from Halloween to Christmas! You are not a time lord and, unfortunately, you are not Mariah Carey.
  • Delaney If you’re so worried about schedules then what about daylight saving time?
  • AJ
     
    ???!!!
  • Delaney Thanks to daylight saving time ending it gets dark SUPER early.
  • Delaney The universe is begging you to have twinkly lights cascading down from your ceiling.
  • AJ
     
    Yes, twinkling lights make us happy.
  • AJ
     
    And WE NEED TO BE HAPPY.
  • AJ
     
    But it can’t be Christmas all the time. We need Thanksgiving first, like Hallmark intended!
  • Delaney If Hallmark had a line of Thanksgiving movies where big city women visit their hometowns and fall back in love with their high school sweetheart all because of some high stakes turkey stuffing contest, then sure. I’ll wait.
  • Delaney But it doesn’t, does it?
  • AJ
     
    …
  • Delaney Thanksgiving has NOTHING.
  • AJ
     
    LIES.
  • AJ
     
    It has green bean casserole. You like green bean casserole right?!
  • AJ
     
  • Delaney No, I don’t hate myself.
  • Delaney Which is why I decorate for Christmas early.
  • AJ
     
    Fine.
  • AJ
     
    As long as they come down by January 1st.
  • Delaney I’ll allow it.

CNN’s Allie Schmitz contributed to this piece.
Photo credits: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images; Shutterstock.