Spin off of taking Christmas decortions down- When do you put them up

[Elfmama]

Depends on whether I'm getting a real tree or not.  If I get a real tree, it goes up 1-2 weeks before Christmas, and goes down right after New Year's.  If it's a fake tree year, I'm happy to put it up anytime after Thanksgiving dinner.

This.  We've done the fake tree for several years, though, as we have been flying out to see my parents the week between Xmas and New Years and don't want to worry about a real tree drying out too much.

[Miss March]

Our tradition is to decorate the house for Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving. I never shop on "Black Friday." Instead, we put up the (fake) tree, I play Christmas music, bake some of those easy to bake Pillsbury cookies, and I decorate the tree and the house. It's a wonderfully relaxing and fun way to start the season!

[nrb80]

I've put them up on the 24th, on Christmas day, and one painful year on the 26th, took pictures, and took them down!

I think Thanksgiving..... but at least wait for Halloween to be over!

[NestHolder]

I don't put up any Christmas decorations until the children have finished school/are home for the holidays, so getting on for the 20th December.  My DD likes to dictate participate in the purchasing of the tree, and it used to be that she and her little brother would decorate it.  DS usually declines to participate nowadays, as he is bored by tree decorating, so DD and I do it together.  However, last year the two of them put various items around the living room/dining room, and the strings of baubles over the pictures... never got taken down.  It seems a bit redundant at this point!

[Rosey]

Well, I'm assuming everyone will be nice when I saw this since it is in etiquette forum. 

I'm a November 1st person. 

I LOVE Christmas decorations. I love trees and lights and scents. I love reds, and greens, and wrapped presents, and religious symbols, and more. I tend to be a, "If you're going to do it, do it BIG" kind of person, but I keep all of this inside my house. I have a big house with big rooms, so I have small trees all over my house. I have one main tree in my living room, and two 5' tall thin trees in my front rooms (library and dining room). We use these three trees for our three families - presents for my mom's family go under one tree, my dad's family under another, and my husband's family (who are not divorced) under another.

We take everything down by January 6th for sure, but we like to put it up early.   

[mechtilde]

Christmas Eve. We have a real tree- the men who run the little plantation we get it from recognise us as regulars now. If there isn't a nice tree available already cut, we go and choose one and they cut it in front of us.

DH is German, and this is a very important tradition to him.

[Information_queen]

Shoo, that's so sweet of you!

My birthday is December 27. Mama Isabella used to bust all sorts of hiney to take Christmas stuff down on the 26th so my birthday wouldn't be Christmas Afterthought.

Now that I'm grown, I leave my lights up until January. I love Christmas lights.

That's funny, because my birthday is New Years and I always insisted the decorations be left up until after my birthday!

I have to check my lease before I decorate. We're allowed to put stuff in the windows (which usually have to remain undecorated 'only the white blinds showing from the street') but I believe we have some restrictions on how long they can be up.

Not that I'll do much, we live in an apartment.

[Just Lori]

I've met a woman who keeps Christmas decorations up all year.  They are very tastefully done and actually fit into her decor.  It's not my thing, but she's happy.

Personally, I put them up during the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I love my Christmas decorations, but I'm always ready to take them down afterwards.  Decorations seem to mock me on December 26: "Ha!  Christmas is over.  Now you have four more months of gloom and snow!  At least get rid of all of this clutter."

[Rosey]

Shoo, that's so sweet of you!

My birthday is December 27. Mama Isabella used to bust all sorts of hiney to take Christmas stuff down on the 26th so my birthday wouldn't be Christmas Afterthought.

Now that I'm grown, I leave my lights up until January. I love Christmas lights.

That's funny, because my birthday is New Years and I always insisted the decorations be left up until after my birthday!

I have to check my lease before I decorate. We're allowed to put stuff in the windows (which usually have to remain undecorated 'only the white blinds showing from the street') but I believe we have some restrictions on how long they can be up.

Not that I'll do much, we live in an apartment.

DH and I have birthdays around Thanksgiving, and our daughter has a birthday in December. We put up the decorations on November 1st and just say that it's all part of the holiday season! 

[Giantkillersmom]

The weekend before Thanksiving I have DH and the kids bring everything up from the basement.  I decorate the house while the kids are in school.  Then we decorate the tree together the weekend after Thanksgiving and put all the wrapped presents under the tree that night so I can torture the kids for a month, lol.

[alegria]

We put up the outside lights the weekend after Thanksgiving.  We'll usually get a tree the second weekend of December since we're often out of town the first weekend, and it'll go up and be decorated the day we get it.  That's also when I put up the other decorations inside the house, such as stockings and whatnot.

This year we're flying back east for the holiday (just bought the tickets) so I don't know what we'll do yet.  The last time we flew east I caved on Dec 12th and bought a little bitty tree to decorate because I couldn't stand not having one...

[LadyR]

December 1st. My DH would kill me if I did it earlier. I have friends who do it mid-November, the day of the Santa Claus parade, which seems fine to me (but not to DH--who given a choice would wait 'til mid-December).

[Shea]

December 1 for us too. That's how my mother did it, so I do it that way too. It used to drive me crazy when I was little, all I could think about was my box of Christmas books sitting down in the basement waiting for me to read them again! The tree doesn't go up until a week or so before Christmas though, so it'll stay fresh until New Year's.

[DaynaMarie]

I'm with everyone who says weekend after Thanksgiving.

[Jessie]

Usually the first weekend after Thanksgiving weekend - we go away for Thanksgiving, and we aren't home the weekend immediately following to decorate. I don't know if we'll be putting up a tree this year though - the new kitten demolished the old tree, and he can't be kept from the tree by threat of the tree monster (aka, tha vacuum) like the older cat can, so we may just give it a pass    We have too many ornaments that are important to us though to risk the cats pulling them all off the tree (again) this year. It ended up being mostly stressful, which kind of defeats the purpose.