When does Christmas begin and end in your house?

[thelegohooverer]

No judgement allowed! I’m just curious about how other people do it.

When does Christmas begin for you, and what does that mean? Is it decorations going up, or the nice food coming out? Is there a particular event, or does it just creep up?

Go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, ring my family Christmas morning, work on Christmas Day and see OH's family on boxing day. See my family on NYE (brother and I go to confession to appease mum save our eternal souls for another year) and get completely shitfaced.
Tis the most wonderful time of the year...

I would say the pre-Christmas build up starts for us on 1st December. I start putting decorations up, I make the DC 'Christmas breakfast' and give them their advent calendars. Over the days of December we will make decorations and cards, make mince pies and shortbread or ginger biscuits and get our tree. On Christmas Eve is when Christmas proper starts - the Christmas goodies will be cracked open that evening. Christmas for me always goes on til 6th January as that is what my mum always did. Where they live '3 Kings Day' is a big deal and they always give the DC a little present for 6th Jan. So my decorations stay up til then.

We start late November/early December. Haven't put stuff up yet as need to have a clear out first.

I keep my decs up until Candlemas on 2nd of Feb. I don't get sick of it at all!

Tree up between 1st and 7th December, doesn't really feel like xmas until the kids break up though (18th or there abouts). Tree comes down on the 2nd January.

DH said that now Hans Gruber has fallen from the Nakatomi Plaza, (last night at about 11.45 on Sky Christmas), I can now switch the Christmas lights on. They usually go off on NYD

Realistically we usually have the tree up the weekend before Xmas ( I would rather Xmas eve but have been overruled ) down on 4th as dh birthday. We do Xmas day and Boxing Day , may catch up with family or friends if people are off between Xmas and NYE.

Prep I usually do the odd thing in November such as ordering food buying the odd present, the rest I do in Dec .

Our decorations are up already. Came out of hospital after a serious emergency and was miserable so thought why not? Cheers me up every morning

Twinkly outside lights will go up next weekend
Advent Calenders on 1st
Real tree up around Dec 10th and down on Jan 6th

When I was a kid, the tree and decs went up about a week before Christmas and came down on Jan 5th.

We start earlier now I gave my own family. Anywhere from first or second weekend in December depending on what we feel like. I’m allowed to start playing my Christmas playlist from Dec 1st though 😆

Tree and decs gone down on NY Day. I also try not to have any Christmas food and booze left by then. Can’t stand it all dragging on any longer.

I am not one for Christmas in November, so the beginning of Christmas here is 1st December when the advent calendars go up. We usually put our tree and decorations up on the first Saturday in December, which still feels REALLY early to me, as when I was a child, our tree never went up before about the 17th Dec!
As for ending, I always used to leave them up till 6th January, but that's edging earlier and earlier as the years pass. However I'd never take them down before New Year. To me, Christmas and New Year are all part of one season.

On 1st December we crack open the Advent calendars and put up the tree.

I don't usually feel festive until the kids have their last day at school. Usually it's because end of term is my deadline to have everything done and dusted.

Boxing day through to new years is a blur of PJs, films and too many wines and chocolates, we try to add some walks in too.

New years eve its all packed away so we start the new year fresh.