It makes really good sense to postpone Christmas to February. Here’s why

RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL December 24, 2014
Slate's brilliant depiction of a good move

Slate’s brilliant depiction of a good move

Over in Slate, L V Anderson has rather a brilliant idea. Let’s postpone Christmas. To February.

Not just this year, but every year. Christmas should be in early February – preferably February 7 – not the end of December, she says.

She offers some excellent reasons, all of them practical (and financially hard boiled). Right now, Christmas comes too soon after Thanksgiving, forcing people to indulge in culinary excess twice within a four-week period. Bank accounts get seriously depleted because people fly home for Thanksgiving and then shop for family and friends for Christmas. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have more pay periods between Thanksgiving and Christmas? And wouldn’t it be extranice to receive your end-of-year bonus before doing your Christmas shopping, instead of crossing your fingers that it’ll all even out in the end?” asks Ms Anderson.

Yes. And yes.

Last but not least, she suggests that delaying Christmas would “prolong the hiring and shopping boom that essentially drives the annual business cycle and soften the mini-recession that typically occurs in the first quarter of the new year.”

And it would be so cheering – in the long, holiday-less months between New Year and spring – to have a bit of Christmas spirit.