Christmas Decorations

It's that time of the year- THE HOLIDAYS™ are upon us. Store shelves laden with tinsel and snowmen figurines, strands of small lightbulbs stapled to porches and wrapped around fences, wreaths made of everything from actual fir tree limbs to pinecones to shining garland. And you want to know the biggest secret of all (read: not a secret at all)?
I love Christmas. 
Specifically, I love Christmas decorations. I love dragging the fake tree out of the closet (I am, in fact, allergic to real trees), I love taking an hour to put the lights on because they must be evenly spaced, I love carefully planning the placement of each and every ornament. I love candy canes of all flavors and I love getting out my light-up snowman to put in the window.
Someday, when I am not a poor college student, I will buy everything in the holiday isle at the store. I will have five trees and so many lights that my whole house glows. Every available surface will be wrapped in various colors of garland and I will make hundreds of paper snowflakes to hang from the ceiling. I will put real snowmen all over the front yard (or fake ones, if global warming continues to ruin Christmas). I will put up these decorations in early November and take them down around Valentine's Day (probably the worst of all holidays).
The real kicker about all of this is that I am not a Christian. I quit when I was ten, which means I have technically been a not-Christian longer than I was a Christian. I don't care about the Bible, I don't care about any of the mythology. It is my understanding that Jesus wasn't even born in the winter. I have no interest in any of that.
What I do love is the joy that a decorated tree gives me. I love the memories wrapped up in my family's collection of ornaments. I love our nativity scene, not because of the Jesus part, but because I colored on some of it with crayon when I was a kid. I love hearing stories about the holidays- like the one about my great-uncle drunkenly crashing into the tree while riding a pogo stick indoors.
I love the morning of, when my sister and I get up early and then wait as long as we can before charging into my parents' room to make them get out of bed. I love watching my family members react to their gifts- one year we got my dad a ghillie suit (Google it) and a pair of Wellington boots. He proceeded to run out into the driveway while wearing said items and bellowed. It was hilarious.
So that's why I love Christmas. It isn't about religion, for me, any more than Halloween is about religion. It's important to me because it both appeals to the obsessive side of me, and to the sentimental side of me. It's about making good food, putting up flawless decorations, and enjoying my loud and crazy family.
So yes, I put up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. In fact, I whistle Christmas carols while I decorate. I would not have it any other way.