Mohegan – When it comes to celebrating the holiday season, there are generally two kinds of people.

There’re some who refuse to string up even a single length of garland until Thanksgiving dinner has been reduced to leftovers. And there’s those jolly folks whose yards are scattered with snowman and Santa decorations before the last jack-o-lantern candle is snuffed.

The hundreds of visitors to the 37th Annual New England Christmas Festival event on Saturday fell firmly in the earlier-is-better camp. Inside the Mohegan Sun Casino Earth Expo, guests with foam reindeer antlers and blinking bulb necklaces roamed past more than 300 vendor spaces filled with wreaths, Christmas tree baubles and other holiday-themed offerings.

Erin LaBarge and Jalisa Venable, an Albany, N.Y., couple married for five years, represented both sides of the holiday denominational divide. LaBarge said she grew up a Christmas purist, one who waited until Black Friday, “or after,” to start decking the halls.

“For me, it’s Oct. 31 at midnight,” Venable said. “So, we compromise and keep the fall decorations up through October.”

“But no Christmas music in the house until after Thanksgiving,” LaBarge said.

Venable said she found a work-around to her wife’s rule, the kind of compromise that long-married couples are familiar with.

“I just listen to it in my car,” she said.

In the cavernous expo space, Christmas tunes tinkled out over loudspeakers below a small group of cosplayers in Dickensian garb near over-sized nutcracker props and tire-sized colored bulbs.

In addition to the kinds of jewelry, clothing and food options found at similar craft fairs, most festival event vendors leaned heavily into holiday-themed wares. The occasional piece of Thanksgiving swag, including a companionless pilgrim and a solitary pilgrim, peeked out from the jumble of Christmas items.

Delicate miniature glass Christmas trees and Santa Claus paintings were displayed along one aisle not far from counters of shortbread, apple strudel, fudge and – if you anticipated a particularly stressful holiday season – wine slushie kits.

Norwich Free Academy Class of 1964 graduate Kathleen Quinn Bellicchi chatted with browsers as she straightened boxes of homemade biscotti created from a recipe passed down from her mother-in-law.

Bellicchi, owner of Bellicchi’s Best Biscotti, said she and her late husband, Eric, baked the crunchy, oblong Italian cookies together for years, even as his Alzheimer's disease slowly progressed.

“The biscotti is twice-baked and he’d always turn them during the second bake,” Bellicchi said. “It was so ingrained, he’d still do that turn.”

Southington resident Melissa English’s dedication to all things holiday made her stand out, even in an event hall full of Type-A celebrators. She said she’ll start decorating in September or October and usually focuses on getting all her Christmas shopping done at the festival.

“But this year, I’m all done shopping and most everything’s wrapped,” English said, sporting a pair of Christmas shoes. “Today, I’m looking for stuff for myself.”

j.penney@theday.com