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Q- do non religious people people put trees up earlier than religious people?

90 replies

RobertSmithdoesmyhair · 04/12/2019 23:32

Chatting at work today about trees. We noticed that those who are Catholic don't put trees up until much closer to Xmas- around the 15th Dec, as it is nearing the birth of Jesus. However, those who are not religious already have theirs up! Is there a general correlation or not? What do you think? Is Christmas just commercial nowadays?

OP posts:
Heatherjayne1972 · 05/12/2019 07:38

Some very religious people I know don’t do trees at all
As they’re pagan symbols
( these are mainstream Christians not Jehovah witnesses)

ShouldI101 · 05/12/2019 07:42

My Christian Christmas tree will be going up the weekend after next due to lack of floorspace and me getting sick of tripping over it after a week. But our Christmas duvets went on the beds on 1st December, along with our Christmas dishtowels and bathmats.

Our church is putting it's decorations out today. And it goes overboard for twinkly lights and fake snow, it should be a Santa's grotto.

HulksPurplePanties · 05/12/2019 07:43

I grew up Catholic in a very Catholic town and everyone I know decorated the first weekend in December....

ToTheRegimentIWishIWasThere · 05/12/2019 07:43

I'm a weekly church attender and the tree went up on Sunday. It goes up for Advent. 🎄

NiceViper · 05/12/2019 07:45

Some religions don't celebrate Christmas, so possibly no tree at all.

Ditto the remaining very puritanical Christian sects.

(And I'd be very wary of lumping all adherents in the majotnChristian denominations together on anything whatsoever. That's the way to start a nice European War)

MsRomanoff · 05/12/2019 07:46

Irish catholic. My family all put them up in late November.

The extelremely religious people I know dont have trees or any 'pagan decorations' in their house

RiftGibbon · 05/12/2019 07:47

I'm a pagan and my tree simply goes up when I have time. I like it done by 20/21st as that ties in with the solstice, but as long as nobody messes with my decoration, I can't get too stressed.

ILoveEvie · 05/12/2019 08:12

It would make sense for many practicing Christians to wait to put their tree up.. although, it's by means necessitated by their faith...
the period before Christmas Day is NOT Christmas in the Christian calendar, it's ADVENT (hence Advent calendars!) and this is a time for prayer, fasting, preparation etc...
CHRISTMAS begins on Christmas Day and continues for 12 days.. "12 Days of Christmas.."

I am a Christian and I will put the tree up in December as soon as I can because I love them and they're pretty (and confuse the heck out of the dog! 🤣) but many Vicars I know won't start until much closer to The 25th...
Also many people who have birthdays in December might wait until after them to start with Christmas but I guess that's a different thing.

It also doesn't matter that Jesus wasn't born on 25th... we all know that wasn't his "actual" birthday. It's a symbolic day of celebration. Like many holidays.

Happy Christmas everyone!!!!
(It's December... I'm allowed to say it now!)

happypotamus · 05/12/2019 08:46

This theory doesn't really work because I am Catholic and DH is atheist. When our tree goes up depends on various factors, mostly what weekend shifts I am working, what other plans we have, how organised we are, how much DC pester us.

elliejjtiny · 05/12/2019 08:59

I'm a Christian and my tree will go up somewhere around 20th December. I have 2 cats and 5 dc so can't leave it up for long.

Moonmelodies · 05/12/2019 09:14

According to Jeremiah 10:3-4 God forbids having decorated trees indoors.

Oakmaiden · 05/12/2019 09:16

I always used to put my tree up on the 21st (Winter Solstice). However my children are real nags, so we have put it up a bit earlier the past couple of years.

TheLightGetsIn · 05/12/2019 09:17

Clearly people do vary a lot in what they do, but I know lots of very old school Catholics who are quite focused on the traditional church calendar and for them there is a broad correlation, yes. Advent is the focus just now, so Christmas decorations usually don't go up until much closer to Christmas with the exception of Advent calendars. Cribs sometimes appear earlier, but without the Christ child figure. And none of the Catholics I know would dream of taking down their decorations until Epiphany. Grin Some won't take down their crib until Candlemas. By contrast, the majority of the non-religious people I know (though not all) will decorate earlier, and will effectively celebrate Christmas throughout December. Most won't keep the "12 days" and will take down decorations a few days after Christmas, though I only know one who takes hers down on Boxing Day.

Catholic culture traditionally goes "fast then feast" (Advent followed by Christmas, or Lent followed by Easter) while secular culture currently seems more like "feast then fast" (feasting and partying throughout December, then magazines are all full of January diets, new exercise regimes, Dry January etc).

Gatehouse77 · 05/12/2019 09:21

We’re not religious but the tree goes up on Christmas Eve. Which comes from my mother’s side of the family. The lapsed Jewish side - I guess because they’re descended from the Ashkenazi’s.

NekoShiro · 05/12/2019 09:24

Pagan and atheist household, we put our up on the 30th of Nov as it was the first weekend of Dec

banivani · 05/12/2019 09:28

There's five in the family, four are lapsed Catholics, I don't consider myself properly lapsed yet. Tree goes up close to Christmas (maybe 23d) because it's a fucking Christmas tree, not an Advent tree. Fuckssake. I'm mostly influenced by old-school Scandinavian traditions though in this respect.

ILoveEvie · 05/12/2019 09:30

@Moonmelodies
"According to Jeremiah 10:3-4 God forbids having decorated trees indoors."

This is not saying you can't have a decorated tree indoors- it's referring to people at the time carving idols to worship out of wood. Context is everything.

Aposterhasnoname · 05/12/2019 09:35

I’m atheist, DH is catholic. This year he insisted the tree went up on the 1st December. Left up to me it would have been the 8th.

TheNavigator · 05/12/2019 09:38

The theory doesn't work because the tree isn't a religious symbol, it is linked to the solstice, so nearer the 21st makes sense if you aren't a christian. If you have are a christian I guess you just have a tree to piggyback on the xmas magic so I don't suppose it will matter when you put it up.

onemouseplace · 05/12/2019 09:40

I'd put my tree up on the 24th if I could and take it down on Epiphany - agree with banivani that it's a Christmas Tree, not an Advent Tree. I also don't agree with the troughing Christmas food for the whole of December - ok at a Christmas event - but surely all the special Christmas food comes out, you know, at Christmas?

I have friends of the put the tree up on the 1st, down on Boxing Day mentality and they are the ones who really struggle with Twixmas, probably because they are so over the whole Christmas food thing by then.

Nothing to do with being religious or not - I'm an atheist now, but am a but of a stickler for doing things properly.

Allinadaystwerk · 05/12/2019 09:41

We do all realise that Christmas us actually a pagan thing right? The nativity story I the Christian bible has no mention of Christmas trees or Santa or 25th Dec (Yule tide) or holly or mistletoe. This winter pagan festival was merged with the birth of Christ story and called Christ-mas a long time ago. So really the tree has no religious relevance if you are a bible believing Christian.
Here have a humbug 😁

banivani · 05/12/2019 09:41

Hear hear @onemouseplace!

Christmas is becoming more stress and less feast every year, because all the celebrating is done before it happens. what happened to the 12 days of Christmas? Rant rant rant.

Mountian · 05/12/2019 09:56

Our tree and decorations are going up some time during the week commencing 9th December, as we have family visiting over the weekend of 14th/15th and we are all going to the pantomime (oh yes we are!). I like the house to look festive and make an effort, as it's one of the rare times we can get everyone together.

So that's the official start for me, and as we have a panto trip on the second or third weekend of December every year, we always work it around those dates.

Tree and other decorations always come down on twelfth night, regardless.

Nothing to do with our beliefs, church services etc, that's a separate thing.

ToTheRegimentIWishIWasThere · 05/12/2019 10:37

I am a Christian and I will put the tree up in December as soon as I can because I love them and they're pretty (and confuse the heck out of the dog! 🤣) but many Vicars I know won't start until much closer to The 25th...

My DM is a vicar and had been campaigning to have the tree up since Saturday, it's agnostic/atheist/ginchy DF who says not till the 15th Grin

BiddyPop · 05/12/2019 10:57

We are Christian (raised Catholic, somewhat lapsed although DD has done her sacraments, but she goes to a CofI school and we are more of that protestant ethos than purely RC, and DH is an engineer, I'm a scientist, so there is a healthy scepticism going on too).

We don't tend to decorate until mid-December. Part of my decorations are a number of different sized cribs. (and possibly 2 trees this year...).

The decorations don't come down until after NY, sometimes on 6th January but some years DH will want them down a little sooner depending on when we get back to work/school etc.

But on the pagan aspect, when I had an allotment (for about 5 years until work pressures meant I couldn't dedicate enough time to it), I used to go up around 21st Dec annually and harvest final crops for Christmas Dinner and also bring a hip flask to do a Winter Solstice scattering on the ground.

And I also keep up the family tradition of the youngest lighting the Christmas candle on 24th (to show there is "room in our Inn") and we have a family reflection on the good and bad of the year just finishing, and remember those who have died, finishing with a family prayer.

There is time to do both. And have parts of the house looking like Christmas threw up in a very spectacular secular way.

We mostly focus on it as a family period though, and as our lives in general are far too busy, we don't start to put up the decorations until the other aspects start to slow down slightly and allow us to reflect on the family aspect. And signal to ourselves that we need this quieter period to slow down, and focus on ourselves and each other.

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