Some people bristle when the seasons overlap. Thanksgiving gets a little shine from Christmas lights, and carols show up before the turkey is carved. Life has taught me that everything is fleeting, and the older I get, the more I see the borders between days soften like snow along a fence line.

When I was little, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas felt endless, bright as a string of porch lights. Now the years run closer, shoulder to shoulder. Maybe that is why I do not separate them so strictly anymore.

I still ache for a place and a time I cannot visit again. Holidays around my Gram’s table. Sunday dinners at my great-grandmother’s house. Christmas Eve at my Aunt Evelyn’s. Those rooms live quietly inside me, like lanterns glowing in memory. I hear the easy laughter from the kitchen, the low murmur of grown-ups telling the year’s stories, the soft clink of plates finding their places. I smell ham and cinnamon, coffee and sugary treats cooling on wax paper. I feel the worn edge of the counter under my palm, the comfort of belonging.

At Gram’s house, warmth met you at the door. Something gentle always simmered, and the steam fogged the panes just enough to make the world outside look kind. The table was set with care, not for perfection but for presence, and love seemed to live in the rhythm of her hands.

My great-grandmother’s house was quieter, almost reverent. She was a child of a simpler time, when nothing was wasted and everything had a purpose. Her apron tied at the back, the fabric softened by years of soap and sun. Cupboards were modest; hospitality was abundant. The air carried clean linen and a faint sweetness, like gratitude settling over an ordinary day.

At Aunt Evelyn’s, Christmas Eve felt like stepping into a painting. Her dolls watched from their shelves, their porcelain faces catching the tree’s light. Her oil landscapes glowed, brushstrokes rising like low hills, and laughter filled the spaces between them. Even the silence felt festive there.

Maybe that is why I start the Christmas season early now. It is not impatience, it is reverence. The lights, the carols, the cinnamon and pine are echoes of the love that once gathered around those tables. When I hum Silent Night while rolling crusts or hang a wreath before Thanksgiving, I am not hurrying. I am honoring what was, while leaving room for what is yet to arrive.

Blending the seasons feels less like breaking tradition and more like weaving it together. Gratitude and joy belong in the same room; November prayers linger in December light. Grief sits beside gladness, and somehow both are held. Grace, like a quiet river under ice, moves in the unseen places and keeps everything connected.

As the years pass, I have become the keeper of small customs. The recipes are mine to remember now. The apron that belonged to my grandmother hangs on a hook in my kitchen, soft at the ties, carrying the faint scent of flour and lemon oil. I wear it without ceremony, and in the simple motions of stirring and setting and tasting, I feel her near. The faces around the table have changed, but the rhythm remains. We gather, we give thanks, we celebrate. In the light of the tree and the hush of evening, their tenderness returns.

Time does not divide itself the way we try to make it. It softens its edges. It carries the scent of pumpkin and pine at once, the sound of laughter braided with the quiet ache of remembering. The holidays are not competing; they are continuing. Each one feeds the next, a circle of gratitude that keeps its own time.

So if the lights go up a little early or music finds November’s morning, let it be. Perhaps it is not skipping Thanksgiving at all. Perhaps it is remembering the ones who made it beautiful, and holding a good thing a moment longer against the early dark.

Life is short, and wonder is worth keeping lit. The memories fade, but the light they leave behind still shows the way home.