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Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

I’m not one to normally get too carried away about decorating for Christmas early, but after seeing a handful of people put some gorgeous trees up on my Facebook page — and after seeing the ground now covered in that cold white stuff — the itch to get the tree up and transition to the holiday season is getting stronger and stronger. 

Normally I wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving to pull out the tree and other Christmas decorations, but there’s just something great about how cozy the house feels when they’re all up and the lights are twinkling on the tree. 

Over the years, I have simplified my decorations, though  I love looking through them all each year and recalling the memories tied to each one. 

The decorations remind me of traditions that started when I was a child and that have continued as I have had my own family. 

One of those traditions is with our stockings that I adorn with a new little trinket or decoration each year. If you picked up the stocking for my son, Landon, you would see 10 little decorations that we have attached to the stocking, while if you pick up my stocking or my husband’s, you would see 15 for the number of Christmases we have shared together when we started the tradition. 

As a child I loved examining the red stockings of my sisters and my parents and counting up all the little trinkets and decorations for each person. It’s something I enjoyed so much that I decided to continue that tradition on. 

I also have some ornaments from my childhood that my parents saved for me and that now hang on the Christmas tree each year. Our tree also contains ornaments from throughout our years as adults and from ornaments that Landon and our daughter, Sophie, made in church or school, as well as ones we purchased at the store or were given from friends. 

It brings back a flood of memories of experiences that surround each and of the things that my children liked associated with that ornament. 

As I write this, that itch to bring out the tree just continues to grow. 

I laughed to myself the other day when I heard my co-worker say that she had already been blasting the Christmas music. But then I realized Thanksgiving is only a week away.

I say go for it. Find no shame in decorating early. 

There’s a reason it’s called the most wonderful time of the year. 

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Wednesday.