You're already thinking about what you'll eat. What you'll watch. Whether you should buy those ridiculous Christmas pajamas. You're considering baking cookies, even though you've done it approximately twice in your adult life, with questionable results both times.

And you're already listening to Christmas music.

In November.

Like a maniac.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year to Be Left Alone

When you're a kid, Christmas is about presents. You spend weeks dreaming about a toy, only to get something vaguely similar that your parents insist is actually better.

Then you grow up.

And suddenly, the most exciting thing about Christmas is the possibility that your work inbox might finally shut the hell up.

Think about it. When you go on vacation in July, you're technically on vacation. Your out-of-office reply confirms it. So do your Instagram stories. You're lying on a beach, pretending to be someone who's successfully escaped capitalism.

But your phone has other plans.

"Hey! Sorry to bother you on vacation, but just one quick question... "

There is no such thing as a quick question. There are only questions pretending to be quick so they can sneak past your defenses.

And because you're a responsible adult with an unhealthy need to be useful, you answer.

Christmas is different. Or at least, we desperately want to believe it is.

For a few precious days, the entire professional world seems to agree that everyone's had enough. Your boss is eating something covered in gravy. Your clients are out of town. The person who normally emails you at 10: 43 p. m. is presumably arguing with a relative about politics.

Nobody wants to jump on a quick call. Nobody wants to circle back. For once, humanity seems to have collectively decided that all this nonsense can wait until January.

Of course, not everyone gets that luxury. Plenty of people work through the holidays or deal with the busiest season of their year. But maybe that's exactly why the fantasy is so revealing.

We don't just want time off.

We want time off from being constantly available.

Why We're Mentally Decorating the Tree in November

There's something slightly embarrassing about how early we start looking forward to Christmas.

In some places, it's not even cold enough for a scarf, and we're already picturing ourselves sitting by a window with hot chocolate, watching the snow fall, feeling like the emotionally stable main character in a Nancy Meyers movie.

In reality, we'll probably be sitting on the couch in the same sweatpants we've worn for three days, eating cheese straight out of the package.

But that's beside the point.

Half the fun is looking forward to it.

In November, Christmas still exists in its perfect, theoretical form. Nobody's burned dinner. Nobody's started a family argument. You haven't spent an obscene amount of money on gifts for people who specifically told you not to get them anything.

Maybe you'll become the kind of person who makes homemade cinnamon rolls. Maybe you'll finally watch all those Christmas movies you've spent years pretending you've seen. Maybe you'll read an entire book in a single afternoon.

November lets us believe these things about ourselves.

December will provide evidence to the contrary.

Christmas Music Is Basically Time Travel

There's a reason Christmas music makes otherwise perfectly rational adults behave strangely.

You hear the opening notes of a song you've known since childhood, and suddenly you're no longer standing in a grocery store trying to remember whether you need toilet paper.

You're eight again.

Or seventeen.

Or twenty-six, spending Christmas in a terrible apartment with someone you were absolutely convinced you were going to marry.

Music has an incredible ability to drag old feelings into the present without asking permission. Christmas music has an especially unfair advantage: we hear the same songs every year, around the same time, surrounded by more or less the same rituals.

One melody reminds you of your childhood kitchen. Another takes you back to a Christmas when your whole family was still together. A third reminds you of someone you haven't spoken to in years.

And sometimes you genuinely can't explain why a song about sleigh bells makes you want to cry into your coffee.

The thing is, Christmas isn't always happy.

It can be lonely, awkward, exhausting. It can remind you of people you've lost, relationships that ended, and versions of your life that no longer exist.

You can absolutely love Christmas and still feel completely miserable on Christmas Day.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

A Christmas Soundtrack for People With Complicated Feelings About Christmas

If your idea of Christmas music is Mariah Carey, Michael Bublé, and a shopping mall aggressively reminding you to buy something, Sufjan Stevens might be a pleasant surprise.

Or a slightly unsettling one.

Stevens has been recording Christmas music since 2001, when he started making songs as gifts for friends and family. What began as a small personal project eventually grew into more than a hundred recordings collected across Songs for Christmas and Silver & Gold.

Nearly five hours of Christmas music.

That's either an extraordinary creative achievement or proof that someone really, really loves December.

Probably both.

On November 6, Asthmatic Kitty Records releases Worst Christmas Ever!, a collection of 15 tracks drawn from those recordings. It also includes "On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better), " the first new Christmas song Stevens has written, produced, and performed in nearly 15 years.

The album title alone feels remarkably appropriate.

Because let's face it, some Christmases really are the worst.

The collection includes "Sister Winter, " "Put the Lights on the Tree, " "Christmas in the Room, " and the wonderfully titled "That Was the Worst Christmas Ever! "

What's interesting about Stevens' approach is that he doesn't seem particularly concerned with making Christmas sound perfect.

His holiday songs can be tender, strange, funny, melancholy, religious, playful, and sometimes all of those things within the same few minutes.

The new song is about apology and forgiveness. A surprisingly useful subject for a holiday that involves spending extended periods of time with relatives.

"I love the idea of a Christmas apology, " Stevens says in the press materials for the release.

He talks about forgiveness as a gift we can give each other and describes the song as a prayer for greater understanding.

A lovely thought, especially when you consider how many Christmas dinners have been ruined by someone deciding to bring up an argument from 2009.

There's also a new music video, created by Stevens, Michael O'Neal, and Cubby Graham, featuring 6, 000 hand-painted stills made with Hannah Cohen.

Six thousand.

Meanwhile, some of us can't hang a string of Christmas lights without having a nervous breakdown.

But that's exactly what's so appealing about this record. It sounds like Christmas as actual people experience it, rather than some commercial obligation to be happy.

A little messy. A little sentimental. Occasionally ridiculous.

And sometimes genuinely beautiful.

The Annual Fantasy of Becoming a Better Person

Another wonderful thing about Christmas is that New Year's comes right after it. Which means you get a few days to imagine an improved version of yourself.

This person wakes up early. Exercises. Has a healthy relationship with their phone and doesn't spend 40 minutes looking at a complete stranger's kitchen renovation on Instagram.

This person doesn't eat dinner standing in front of the refrigerator.

You'll definitely become this person in January.

Obviously.

For now, you'll have another cookie.

There's something comforting about this arrangement. The future gets to be ambitious while the present gets to be lazy.

For a little while, you don't have to optimize every hour of your existence.

You can watch a movie you've already seen twelve times. Fall asleep halfway through. Wake up and finish yesterday's leftovers.

And if someone asks what you've been doing all day, you can say, "Nothing, really, " without feeling the need to add that you've also been working on a personal project.

Nothing is the project.

Maybe That's What We're Really Waiting For

Of course, Christmas itself rarely turns out quite the way we've been imagining it since November.

The decorations don't look as good as they did in the pictures. Someone gets sick. Dinner takes forever. You spend three hours cleaning the kitchen after a meal that lasted 25 minutes.

You might feel lonely in a room full of people. You might miss someone. You might have an absolutely wonderful time and then feel strangely sad when it's over.

But none of that really ruins Christmas.

In a way, that's what makes it Christmas.

It's one of the few times of year when happiness and sadness can sit next to each other without anyone demanding an explanation.

You can be grateful for what you have and still miss what you've lost. You can love your family and desperately need an hour alone. You can look forward to the new year while having absolutely no idea what you're doing with your life.

You can put on a Sufjan Stevens record, make yourself something warm to drink, and let the whole thing be a little imperfect.

Maybe that's why we're already looking forward to Christmas in November.

Not because we're desperate for presents, decorations, or another excuse to eat an alarming amount of carbs.

But because we're tired.

Because it's been a long year.

Because there's something incredibly appealing about the idea of a few days when we can finally stop trying so hard.

And because somewhere in the distance, beyond the deadlines, unread messages, and all the things we never got around to doing this year, there's a couch.

There's a blanket.

There's music playing.

And, if we're really lucky, nobody needs anything from us.

At least until January.