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When do you decorate for Christmas?


When do you decorate for Christmas?  

1 member has voted

  1. 1. When do you decorate for Christmas?

    • Before Halloween
      0
    • Right after Halloween
      2
    • Mid November
      6
    • Right after Thanksgiving
      76
    • Later
      40


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Technically we start mid-November. But that is just the lights on the outside of the house during the mid-November warm snap. We generally have one day that is about 50. This year it was yesterday. So while the lights are up they are not plugged in.

 

The rest won't happen until after Thanksgiving sometime.

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A split between right after Thanksgiving or later, depending on the year. If we can, we wait until the third Sunday of Advent (often the third Sunday in December, a week or two before Christmas). Sometimes, it just makes sense to get things up before that. Like this year, we'll be gone in December (we were 2 years ago, too). So much of our decorating will happen Thanksgiving weekend or the weekend after here, so when we get back just in time for Christmas, the house will be ready.

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I married into a Catholic family, so we've adopted their habit of not decorating until Christmas Eve. Some years we have cheated a bit and started the week of Christmas because that's when he had leave or when I was in town (I travel for work and am never off on Christmas) but never before that.

 

Christmas wasn't a holiday I grew up really celebrating; it was more of a lesser holiday, and definitely a consumer-driven thing as opposed to a faith-based event.

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I put up our three trees (all artificial) and the lights the weekend before Thanksgiving. For me, that's the hard, not so fun part, and I like to have it done so I can enjoy the lights while I'm cooking (and eating!) the big dinner, and so I can relax the weekend after.

 

We put out the nativity scenes, stockings, wreaths, and ornaments sometime after Thanksgiving...that we do at our leisure, because it's fun, and we like to take our time with it!

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Different things come out at different times. The Christ crib comes out for Advent. Advent candles, wreath, and the start of the Nativity. It's a time of fasting, and we normally fast all sugar.

 

On the 6th of Dec comes St. Nicholas Day, so all of my Jim Shore Santas (which I LOVE) come out.

 

On the 13th we celebrate St. Lucy's Day.

 

Then the trees go up (I have 6, then the natural one is the family Christmas tree), with lights, but no ornaments.

 

Christmas eve is when it gets fun. The trees get decorated, and we decorate the family tree, which we cut down. Then we have the feast of seven fishes, 1 hour of carols, Mass, and home to COOKIES. Then it's PAR-TAY till Epiphany.

Edited by justamouse
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I put up our three trees (all artificial) and the lights the weekend before Thanksgiving. For me, that's the hard, not so fun part, and I like to have it done so I can enjoy the lights while I'm cooking (and eating!) the big dinner, and so I can relax the weekend after.

 

We put out the nativity scenes, stockings, wreaths, and ornaments sometime after Thanksgiving...that we do at our leisure, because it's fun, and we like to take our time with it!

 

 

Mine are all in my attic, assembled. It cracks me up that if the light is on up there, and you are on the street? It looks like a forest in the attic.

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We used to start decorating early in November but I found by the time the presents were unwrapped on Christmas day, I was over it all. It was just diluting the season. You can only keep the excitement going for so long before it gets boring.

 

Now we start the Christmas season on the 1st and extend it to the 31st. No music, no decor, no Christmas movies until then.

 

I made a 31 day calendar made of little cloth bags that are dated and tied with ribbon. The bags get a mix of treats and activities/events. We start decorating on the first of December. The real tree usually goes up a week later. We make sure to keep some fun stuff going after Christmas and end it with a party New Year's Eve, that way there's less of a let down after the presents are opened. On New Year's day, everything gets packed away.

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We get our tree sometime around the 10th or 15th of December. Now that ds is in college, we'd like to wait til he comes home at break, but...we don't, and he didn't really care.

We do have an Advent wreath (live greens) that we make and use all of Advent (we make it the Sat before TG, so this Sat), and a calendar that starts Dec 1, but the Big Box o' Christmas doesn't come out of the attic til we get our tree.

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we decorate the weekend of Advent I, and take down the decorations the day after Epiphany. that usually corresponds to the weekend after thanksgiving, and the weekend after new years (or two).

 

this year, we will decorate the tree on St. Nicholas' Day, as dd the paramedic has to work christmas day, so is visiting early. it will be fun then, and sad later. they'll put their shoes out the way they always do, but this year, we'll be more generous as it is her christmas stocking, too.

 

hth,

ann

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December 1 for most decorations, but the tree goes up about 2 weeks before Christmas.

 

One of the neighbors puts out a nativity scene well in advance of Christmas. Some years it greets the trick or treaters. It's about the size of a plastic toy kitchen, and they don't put up house lights or other outside decorations... so it always puzzles me why they don't wait till a bit closer to the holiday before moving it from the garage to the lawn.

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