LANSING — It’s the shortest possible holiday season: 27 days, less than four full weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Last year was a generous season of 32 days and almost the maximum possible of 33 days. This last happened in 2018 and will happen in 2029.
Some Michigan Christmas tree vendors are opening earlier than ever this year due to time constraints, said Amy Start, executive director of the Michigan Christmas Tree Association.
But only some.
“I was surprised,” said Start, “most of them are holding out and opening the Friday after 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 are I get into the spirit, but some people are waiting until Thanksgiving. I’m honestly shocked at the number of people who 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 before Thanksgiving so his team can shake out all the cobwebs and make sure everything runs smoothly for the big show right after Thanksgiving.
This is what the shortened holidays mean:
Less sun
With winter approaching, there is clearly much less daylight.
The 27-day holiday period provides a maximum of 9 hours and 19 minutes of potential daylight per day, which is just over nine hours on Christmas Day.
Over the season this amounts to a total of approximately 244 hours. Compare that to late June and early July, when Lansing sees the same amount of daylight in about 16 days. At its peak, we get more than 15 hours of potential daylight per day.
Because the holiday season brings nine hours of potential daylight, instead of fifteen, the season will be about 60% as sunny as Michigan’s peak.
And what is time anyway?
“Although the calendar tells us there are 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, time is actually measured in seconds, regardless 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 official time for America.
She said seconds are rooted in atomic physics: the vibration of cesium atoms that oscillate at a precise frequency. That keeps every second consistent, so whether there are 27 days or 32 days before Christmas, each day will last 86,400 seconds.
“They are all equally important 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 these days are constant and reliable. Think about how each moment is not just a tick of the clock, but a blend of tradition and timing. “
Here’s your to-do list
There’s no denying that the holidays go by so quickly.
Now we know, so let’s do it this holiday season.
Let’s wrap it all up, including these activities:
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Hang up your decorations
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Making gift lists and visiting Santa Claus
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Visit everyone you are related to
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Take the time to enjoy everything
Contact Mike Ellis at mellis@lsj.com or 517-267-0415.
This article originally appeared in Lansing State Journal: Feeling rushed? This holiday season is almost a week shorter than last year
