Feeling rushed? This holiday season is nearly a week shorter than last year

LANSING — It’s the shortest possible holiday season: 27 days, not even four full weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Last year was a generous 32-day season and almost the maximum possible of 33 days. That last happened in 2018 and will happen next in 2029.

Some Christmas tree sellers in Michigan opened earlier than ever this year because of the time crunch, said Amy Start, executive director of the Michigan Christmas Tree Association.

But just some.

“I was surprised,” Start said, “most are holding strong – opening the Friday following Thanksgiving. People are so excited about decorating, especially with real trees, and they see all the fresh trees on TikTok and all the decorating and we’re getting in the spirit but then some people are waiting until Thanksgiving. I’m honestly shocked at how many haven’t decided to open early.”

Ed Carpenter opened Peacock Road Family Farm in Laingsburg early, as he often does, to get a relatively quieter week in before Thanksgiving so his crew can shake out all the cobwebs and make sure it’s all running smooth for the big show right after Thanksgiving.

Here’s what the truncated holiday season will mean:

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Less sun

With the winter coming there’s also, clearly, a lot less daylight.

The 27-day holiday period brings up to 9 hours and 19 minutes of potential daylight a day and that peters down to just a bit over nine hours by Christmas Day.

Over the season, it’s about 244 hours total. Compare that to the end of June and beginning of July, when the same amount of daylight happens in Lansing in about 16 days. At the peak, we get more than 15 hours of potential daylight a day.

With the holiday era bringing nine hours of potential daylight, instead of 15, the season will be about 60% as sunny as Michigan’s peak.

And what is time anyway?

“While the calendar tells us there are 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, time is actually measured in seconds, independent of how we group those seconds into days or months,” said Katie Palubicki, a spokesperson for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which keeps the official time for America.

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She said seconds are rooted in atomic physics: The vibration of cesium atoms that oscillate at a precise frequency. That ensures every second remains consistent, so whether there are 27 days or 32 days before Christmas, each day will be 86,400 seconds.

“Each one equally significant in the context of timekeeping,” Palubicki said. “While the number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas may vary from year to year, the seconds that make up those days are constant and reliable. Consider how each moment is not just a tick on the clock but a blend of tradition and timing.”

Here’s your to-do list

There’s no denying the quick holiday turn-around.

Now we know, so let’s go do this holiday season.

Let’s pack everything in, including these activities:

Cleaning up
Taking out decorations
Getting a tree
Putting your decorations up
Making cookies
Buying more decorations
Making gift lists and visiting Santa
Wrapping presents
Visiting everyone you’re related to
Taking time to enjoy it all
Hurrying up

Contact Mike Ellis at mellis@lsj.com or 517-267-0415.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Feeling rushed? This holiday season is nearly a week shorter than last year

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