An old Christmas bauble hanging in the Christmas tree in Finland. Traditionally the Finns use real pine trees and decorate them just before Christmas Eve. www.theTravelPictures.com
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3 Birth Months Who Have Already Mentally Moved On To Christmas

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There are still pumpkins to put out, but you've already had a private debate about which Christmas movie deserves the first rewatch. Maybe a familiar song has slipped into your headphones, too. For these three birth months, the countdown begins long before anyone agrees it's time to decorate.

1. July

July, you know exactly which version of that Christmas song belongs on the playlist. A newer recording is perfectly lovely. The one you want, though, lets you practically hear someone you love singing a beat behind it. Christmas brings back all these little things you've missed: the ornament with the crooked smile, the movie someone always quotes incorrectly, the recipe written in handwriting you'd recognize anywhere. You can spend a surprising amount of September wondering where that recipe ended up. Once you've found it, you might even make a batch, because the ingredients are available in months other than December. Your attachment to the familiar is part of your tenderness. You remember what made an ordinary evening feel special, and you want to have it again. If a song can bring a little of that feeling into today's drive home, of course you're pressing play.

2. October

October, you've already mentally invited everyone over. One friend will bring something homemade, another will arrive with a bag of chips and a story that needs immediate attention, and you know exactly which two people should finally meet. The Christmas gathering exists in considerable detail in your head. You haven't sent the invitation yet, but you have casually asked three people what their December looks like.

You love how a little occasion helps turn “we should get together” into an actual evening. In the Christmas you're imagining, coats are piled on the bed and somebody is still at the kitchen table long after the food has disappeared. You get to hear the whole story, including the parts that never make it into a text. Thinking about it now makes you miss your people in the nicest way. You may send that invitation sooner than planned.

3. December

December, someone says it's too early for Christmas, and you briefly consider how much joy they're willing to postpone. You've already pictured the evening you'll go looking at lights, right down to the drink you'll take along. A promising cookie recipe gets saved. A wonderfully ridiculous decoration earns a photo sent to the one person who will appreciate it. Your mental countdown has room for all these small discoveries, and each one makes the holiday feel a little closer. You still have groceries to buy and laundry to finish, but now there's something lovely to think about while you're doing them. Christmas gets one square on the calendar. You like letting the happiness spill into the days around it. By the time everyone else catches up, you'll have a whole collection of little things you can't wait to show them.