Driving through my neighborhood, I see light up candy canes lining the paths to front doors, twinkling snowflake lights hanging off of dirty gutters and brown withering wreaths on doors. Everything has a time and a place; Christmas decorations are for December, not spring.

The holiday season is my favorite time of year, and I wish it could be celebrated all year long. However, I understand that if we were to do that, it would take away from the magical time in December.

I am a strong believer that decorations cannot be put up before Thanksgiving because it minimizes the greatness of that day. I don’t really feel the Thanksgiving spirit when I see a Christmas tree in the window and red and green filling the room.

The respectable earliest time to start decorating is December 1, but if you need to do it sooner, wait until after Thanksgiving to deck the halls with boughs of holly.

Holiday decorations, in the appropriate time, are beautiful. I have memories of my family driving through our neighborhood looking at the houses dressed with shimmering lights, full green wreaths and big red bows. Leaving the decorations up for a little time in January lets us keep the holiday spirit longer, and they add light to long, dark January nights.

Leave up the festive decorations until mid January, but after that it’s time to go. After then, it makes the house look tacky and the owners look lazy, especially when it turns to spring.

Spring is a time for new beginnings, with flowers sprouting, not wreaths rotting. Let the green be in the grass, not in your house. Plus, if you look hard enough, you’ll notice that five month-old Christmas tree is not green anymore anyway, and it is time for it to go.

Take those lingering Christmas decorations down, and try capturing the beauty of spring. Clean your yards, plant some flowers and bring color to your house. Christmas is in December for a reason, keep the decorations up from December to January, at most.