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Halloween is a fun night in our neck of the woods.
Our youngest daughter is well past the age when adults need to monitor every move while trick-or-treating, but the camaraderie of us adults walking around the streets, saying hi to both strangers and friends keeps our neighborhood caravan in-tact year after year.
Last weekend, we marched about, watching four middle school "cows" rack up enough candy to feed a small army, while watching football from our phones and chatting the night away over a cup of hot cider.
About two-thirds through the walk, I was informed the group was going to spend the night at our house. Candy plus middle school girls? It's going to be loud.
At about 11 p.m., I was the first one to crash -- my need to sleep overtook the laughter that permeated the house. Betsy volunteered to monitor the girls by sleeping downstairs.
The next morning, she groggily reported to me what happened.
"At 2 a.m. I finally told the girls to come inside," she said.
"What were they doing?" I replied.
"Playing and singing Christmas music."
Yep. As the rest of the world was enjoying another hour of Halloween shenanigans, this quartet was already two holidays ahead. Nov. 1 means it’s officially the Christmas season.
Actually, in our house, it started a bit earlier, as Juliet and Betsy insisted upon putting up some of our family's favorite Nutcracker decorations Halloween afternoon.
As we go through the next few weekends, up will come the tree, stockings and our full arsenal of Christmas cheer.
It's not that we skip Thanksgiving -- we annually host at our house a traditional feast filled with football, food and friendship.
For some, the weekend following Thanksgiving -- that of "The Game" -- is where Christmas gets swapped into the rotation.
But as Betsy pointed out, that only leaves three weekends in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not enough to soak in the joy of the season!
I've kind of let it all happen around me. Left to my own device, I might be more of a Christmas-after-Thanksgiving person. I definitely believe that Christmas shopping shouldn't start until around Thanksgiving -- otherwise the mountain of gifts has a tendency to grow larger.
But as a member of the Speer family, I'm all in. I can't really stand Christmas music until we're right around the holiday, but I tolerate it now, even on a warm early November day.
I love that Christmas is a celebration of our Lord and Savior, a gift our world is in desperate need of knowing better.
I like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day filled with tradition and cozy togetherness.
I think it's beneficial for our world to feel the anticipation and hope that this season brings.
Call me an early Christmas convert, but I've come around to this early kickoff. When your child loves Christmas as much as mine does, there's no other way.
Maybe even next year you'll see us prowling the neighborhood on Halloween with glasses of eggnog instead of cider, with four teenage reindeer roaming nearby.
If I'm ever dressed in red and green instead of red, white and blue on the Fourth of July, send help.
Jeremy Speer is the group publisher of The Courier, Findlay, the Sandusky Register, The Advertiser-Tribune, Tiffin, the Norwalk Reflector and Review Times, Fostoria. He can be reached at jeremyspeer@thecourier.com.