Also - moving to Europe has been very instructive.

I realized that Americans drag out both Christmas and their elections too long.

Here, they announce the election, each municipality puts up a huge billboard with every candidate's name and a little info on it, and a few weeks later, there's an election.

Some TV is suspended for candidates to answer questions about issues. It's pretty dull fare. As we are learning, dull is good.

Similarly, unless you live in a tourist town, Christmas is just some Christian holiday, and many places don't celebrate it at alls, or do it on the 6th of January, or the 24th, or....

Certainly there's none of this "Christmas decorations go up after Halloween" stuff.