When will your Christmas tree go up?

[elgerber]

Real tree, always Thanksgiving weekend.

 

[mamamary]

Usually right after Thanksgiving but we ordered a new living room set so I probably won’t put up the tree until furniture gets delivered. The furniture wait is quite long.

 

[Feralpeg]

I begin putting up trees and inside decorations November 1. I know that seems early, but I put up four trees. As I've gotten older, it takes me much longer to decorate. It is a ton of work and I want time to really enjoy the decorations. So...early! I don't put anything up outside until the week of Thanksgiving.

 

[disykat]

We have decorations from right after Thanksgiving until after Epiphany.

I'm honestly not sure about anything this year. We probably won't be having any gatherings with friends and I'm not even sure if our kids are coming. We've just started discussions about Thanksgiving and our friend group is not meeting. One son and his girlfriend are coming, not sure about other son and his wife. We'll save Christmas decisions with extended family until after Thanksgiving and decide based on statistics in our areas.

I do know we bought some extra stuff already to decorate OUTSIDE. I think lights and outdoor decor is going to be really important this year!

 

[LilyWDW]

Most likely the weekend after Thanksgiving, but I have to buy one first lol. I only want like a 3ft one to put on my coffee table.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

Usually I put the tree up sometime in the first week of December. It's a bit up in the air this year because my uncle died this year and my aunt really doesn't want to face the holiday. So I won't pester her. But we also have a sixteen-month-old in the house, so she might allow it to go up fairly early for him...but my beloved and fragile Disney ornaments! So I don't know.

 

[Sjm9911]

Usually I put the tree up sometime in the first week of December. It's a bit up in the air this year because my uncle died this year and my aunt really doesn't want to face the holiday. So I won't pester her. But we also have a sixteen-month-old in the house, so she might allow it to go up fairly early for him...but my beloved and fragile Disney ornaments! So I don't know.

My daughters first Christmas was binkies for ornamemts. Lol. She would try and stand to get them. Second was no glass or brakable stuff. I do the same when we get new kittens.

 

[luvnwdwgal]

Honestly between the pandemic and taking care of elderly in-laws 24/7 our lives suck. I usually host the family Christmas party every year but this year I’m not doing it. Not even going to put a tree up. I have a little tree that I’m going to set on top of the fireplace, throw a wreath on the door, that’s it.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

Somewhere around the 1st or 2nd week of December and stays up until Jan. 1. I use a white artificial tree and actually store it in my basement with the lights still on it. It's in my exercise room and sometimes when I'm exercising I turn the lights on because who doesn't like to exercise to Christmas lights. I keep a small table top one up all year round upstairs in my woman cave. It's a tradition from my Mama. She decorated every room in the house and would always miss one something every year when she took everything down. The tree is one of hers with her decorations on it.

I love family traditions like that.

One of my sisters also decorates a tree in every room in her house including the bathrooms. Her open living room & kitchen have 4 trees between them. Another sister puts a tree in all of her rooms except her bathrooms. She cheats & pays someone to do all of her decorating though. I used to put up three. The past few years I only put up two 4 feet trees, because I haven't really been into Christmas in recent years. This year I'm thinking of adding a big tree to the two small ones. One of the smaller trees is decorated in all UNC Tar Heel ornaments. I told DH I may start leaving it up year-round, when I get my UNC room decorated this year.

 

[AustinTink]

We never get to put up our tree on Thanksgiving weekend because we are always out of town. Not this year! Thanks to Covid, I will actually be in my own home on Thanksgiving. Whoohoo!! I get to decorate early this year!

 

[TipsyTraveler]

November 1st and onward is fair game. Realistically, it’ll take me a few days to get around to taking down the Halloween decorations. Then I’ll procrastinate for a few days. Then decorations will start going up in fits and starts around the attention demands of the kids. Trees are usually up and decorating complete around mid-November; I try to finish gift wrapping and cooking by December 1st. Thanksgiving is a lost holiday that I half-heartedly joke will one day get moved to become a late-spring/early-summer celebration. This is our first Christmas in this house and the (fingers crossed) plan, now that we have more space, is to store 7 of the 9 trees fully decorated after the holidays so that next year we can just slide them into place and reduce the decorating effort by 80%.

Somewhere around the 1st or 2nd week of December and stays up until Jan. 1. I use a white artificial tree and actually store it in my basement with the lights still on it. It's in my exercise room and sometimes when I'm exercising I turn the lights on because who doesn't like to exercise to Christmas lights. I keep a small table top one up all year round upstairs in my woman cave. It's a tradition from my Mama. She decorated every room in the house and would always miss one something every year when she took everything down. The tree is one of hers with her decorations on it.

I love this story! Both the sweet bit about your mom and also that you allow yourself to enjoy Christmas lights year round simply because they make you happy.

I begin putting up trees and inside decorations November 1. I know that seems early, but I put up four trees. As I've gotten older, it takes me much longer to decorate. It is a ton of work and I want time to really enjoy the decorations. So...early! I don't put anything up outside until the week of Thanksgiving.

I’m with you! I consider the season a success when I finish the preparations early enough to kick back and enjoy the month of December with everyone else.

Usually I put the tree up sometime in the first week of December. It's a bit up in the air this year because my uncle died this year and my aunt really doesn't want to face the holiday. So I won't pester her. But we also have a sixteen-month-old in the house, so she might allow it to go up fairly early for him...but my beloved and fragile Disney ornaments! So I don't know.

My oldest was 9 months for his first Christmas and it wasn’t a problem the way I worried it might be. I put especially fragile or sentimental ornaments up high, but otherwise decorated the trees as normal. Turns out, he was more interested in going after the LED candles than the ornaments. I also allowed him full access to touch anything he wanted with hardcore reinforcement about “one finger, gentle touch.” He seemed to understand the concept well enough and I think that approach worked better than trying to make things completely off limits. Once he could touch the ornament, the desire was out of his system. All my ornaments survived that year and in the years since. This year I have three new kittens, though, so I’m pretty well screwed.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

My oldest was 9 months for his first Christmas and it wasn’t a problem the way I worried it might be. I put especially fragile or sentimental ornaments up high, but otherwise decorated the trees as normal. Turns out, he was more interested in going after the LED candles than the ornaments. I also allowed him full access to touch anything he wanted with hardcore reinforcement about “one finger, gentle touch.” He seemed to understand the concept well enough and I think that approach worked better than trying to make things completely off limits. Once he could touch the ornament, the desire was out of his system. All my ornaments survived that year and in the years since. This year I have three new kittens, though, so I’m pretty well screwed.

Our little one gets the concept if we say "do nice." I can only hope that the big sparkly tree in the room isn't too much for his brain to process the 'do nice' bit. You're right about the kittens, though. You're screwed.

 

[Summer2018]

I really like to celebrate all of the holidays, so we wait until the day after Thanksgiving. Then we decorate inside and outside, a big tree in the living room and a small one in the dining room. We have allergies and asthma, so we have artificial trees. We were never Black Friday shoppers, so those three days give us enough time to get it all done. The following weekend, I do all of the Christmas cards. The week after, the baking begins.

Growing up, it was a live tree on Christmas Eve.

 

[easyas123]

I really like to celebrate all of the holidays, so we wait until the day after Thanksgiving. Then we decorate inside and outside, a big tree in the living room and a small one in the dining room. We have allergies and asthma, so we have artificial trees. We were never Black Friday shoppers, so those three days give us enough time to get it all done. The following weekend, I do all of the Christmas cards. The week after, the baking begins.

Growing up, it was a live tree on Christmas Eve.

That seems a lot like our formula/schedule as well! I really look forward to enjoying Thanksgiving THEN Christmas.

Christmas cards - you know I was thinking about cards earlier today as a matter of fact. I wonder if Christmas cards may make a bigger splash this year w/ more folks sending them as we continue to spend time apart. I hope so, I think it is a nice tradition.

 

[RedAngie]

Never until December. Probably the weekend of the 5th/6th this year. Tree stays up until at least January 2nd.

 

[tcufrog]

We have allergies so fake trees for us. We put a 9-foot real looking one that has pine cones attached to the branches in the family room and a 7 foot dark purple one in the library. The purple one is decorated with brass ornaments from our travels. Before COVID I was planning to get a white one for our patio. We have a big outdoor fireplace with a sectional in front. When we entertain in the winter, we like to light a fire in that fireplace and have people enjoy it outside while drinking hot drinks. I thought the Christmas tree decorated with outdoor ornaments in the colors of our outdoor decor would be a nice touch.

It's a challenge though getting help though with the trees because the kids are more interested in setting up the LEGO Christmas village on the dining table. I try to entice them with hot chocolate, fresh baked cookies and Christmas music.

 

[aprilgail]

Around dec 10 or so-it comes down New Year’s Eve day.

 

[PolyTigger]

Real or Fake tree?

 

[PollyannaMom]

Probably December 5th this year, as DS won’t have to go back up to school between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Last year, we waited until he was home to get a real one together.)

I don’t like to do a real one too early, as I don’t want it to be all dry by Christmas. But the years we do artificial, I’m all for the day after Thanksgiving!

Who knows, maybe this year we’ll put up both!

 

[shh]

The problem with Christmas trees isn’t putting them up. It’s taking them down. It’s not fun to remove decorations. One year I left it up all year. It wasn’t worth the hassle of taking it down.

Every year for the past few years, when the holidays are over, we wrap up our fake, pre-lit, fully trimmed tree in several big sheets and store in a back room til next season.

Haven't taken down ornaments in years, other than those to decorate other areas of the house. Is that cheating? I dunno...and don't care. It's blissfully easy: i have a beautiful, fully decorated tree without any effort.

But I do put a lot of time into other areas of decor, so this just saves me one step.