I Christmassed too early - now i'm sort of already over it 🥺

[mumofoneAloneandwell]

Just that 😭😭😭

It’s started here but only just. Tree only up now. No xmas food until Xmas Eve. Better that way. For us anyway

Why on earth did you put the tree up in mid-November then?

I'm not even starting Christmas until friday when I'll have pretty much everything organised then I can sit back and enjoy it, 3 weeks of work so I will keep the tree up until last possible moment!

@bangwhistle Same! There were £60 “pick your own” trees on farms but all the cheaper places like garden centres had sold out. I got literally the last tree from a B&M by luck.

I am busy from tomorrow until the 23rd so went food shopping tonight. Lots of the fresher items aren’t even on the shelves until the 19th.
Shops are currently full of Christmas goodies that need to be eaten by the 24th !🙁

I always order a tree for delivery on the 16th, but this year they delivered it on the 4th of December for some reason. It's actually been quite nice having the tree and decorations up earlier than usual, it's cheered me up. The first tree I glimpsed in someone's living room this year was on 27th October!

We also wait until mid-December or the heat from the fireplace in our lounge kills the tree before new year’s. As we like a tall tree, we bought it around the 5th but left it in our back garden in its netting until the 13th. Good thing we did as our usual place had sold out of trees by last weekend.

Went into pound shop today.. they had Easter eggs in.🤷‍♀️ Now that is definitely far too early.

My parents had a rule of no Christmas stuff before 1 December, which worked way back in the 80s and 90s because people tended not to get going with it all too early. Trees went up around mid December, because that was the pre-Nordmann Fir era, when everyone had a Norway Spruce — and the spruces dropped their needles like billy-o, so if you got it before mid-December it would be a twig by Christmas Eve! Then they all stayed up until Twelfth Night, and were put out all brown and twiggy the next morning.

The post-Christmas period up to Twelfth Night is such an enjoyable break until school and work starts again — why would you want to shorten that? Stop putting your tree up too early and then you’ll enjoy the proper Christmas season more!

Only just starting here.
Perhaps next year you’ll hold back a bit.
I find people Christmassing too early spoils it for others too. I wish people would at least wait until first advent.

I kind of get this - but do you not have some exciting things planned for the actual festival?

For me, Christmas usually has two bumps of excitement..

First late-nov to early december I get all excited about the planning, decorating preparing etc.

Then it dies down, and around now, it isn't as exciting...

But then in a few days when the festive period actually kicks in, family, friends, Christmas eve etc. It will all kick on and get very exciting again.

That lull in the middle is kind of needed, it would be too intense to do it all for a whole month or more.

We decorate the tree 19th or 20th and it stays up until 12th night. Do cards and advance cooking eg Christmas cake and freezer stuff like mince pies in November. But everything else only starting now.

Some people seem to have become weirdly obsessed with Christmas nowadays to an unhealthy degree (I’m not suggesting this is you op!).

It’s the same with everyday things like cleaning and pet ownership; you can’t just be normal about it, it has to be an extreme passion and your dog has to be your baby, (which incidentally I don’t think is great for the dog either), and you have to make hoover stripes in the carpet.

We just have come to really dislike the consumerism and the hype and this kind of frantic intensity to the exclusion of everything else.

Maybe make up a shoebox of practical toiletries, chocolate, underpants and warm socks and donate to a homeless shelter op? Get the joy back by helping someone else maybe? And take back control next year so you have the sort of Christmas that suits you best. You don’t have to conform to anyone else’s expectations of the holiday unless you are hosting or something.

On the bright side op, you will be getting a head start on 2026 and all of us late starters if you pack up all the decorations now! 😆😆

This is the Christmas equivalent of premature ejaculation.

It’s probably not your fault. I went to Lidl yesterday to pick up some nice Christmassy bits of food; florentines, panatone etc. After having all that stuff since October, guess what, they no longer had any items. It’s replaced with ordinary food items. It’s completely ridiculous. Everyone is starting Christmas too early!

we found we went the other way and DC start on the Christmas songs and mithering for the tree down early as they got older 😬😬😬

Id have been quite happy putting it up this past weekend.

we only get to 12th night cos the thought of putting it back down and the hassle just makes me miserable 🤣

I am also not looking forwards to wrapping all the presents

I've only just got started!! Need to ice the Christmas cake and bake some more mince pies (first lot were scoffed in 2 days).

Tree has been up since Dec 6th, but DD did that.

Christmas gets me through December, it's January that's hard

@bleakmidwintering that is crazy! Shame on you Lidl

no, ive had the tree up since mid November and i'm sick of looking at it
Im not surprised you are.
Why so early, its like having Halloween in September.
Our Christmas starts this weekend.

That's a shame op, maybe don't do anything Christmassy for a few days then come back to it fresh (obviously you can't take the decorations down, but avoid the treats etc).
We always put our tree up on the first weekend of December and take it down around the 29th/30th as I like to go into the New Year fresh.

So true! I’ve not given in to consumerism this year and refused to buy any Xmas food, cheese, chocs until the 23rd

When I was growing up our decorations went up the Sunday before Christmas. If that was Christmas eve, so be it. And they stayed up until 12th night. We always tend to put them up about a week before Christmas and take them down after NYD. 2 weeks of them is lovely but plenty!

I was planning on getting a tree today. You've all got me worried now with all this talk of places having sold out!

When I was growing up our decorations went up the Sunday before Christmas. If that was Christmas eve, so be it. And they stayed up until 12th night. We always tend to put them up about a week before Christmas and take them down after NYD. 2 weeks of them is lovely but plenty!

I was planning on getting a tree today. You've all got me worried now with all this talk of places having sold out!

The other thing with decorating early and everything coming down on boxing day is that between Christmas and new year is when we are on holiday from work/school etc. I like to walk around in the evening and look at all the lights without it either being rushed or late because we still have to get up early the next day. It's just more relaxed if you are on holiday (I appreciate many people still have to work but the kids are off). Nowadays Christmas day is the last day you can walk around and enjoy everyone's lights. We're definitely an outlier in our village if we keep our lights up through the actual 12 days of Christmas.

No OP you’ve been clever and done it right because the best feeling is that New Year feeling when the tree and all the crap are tidied away and everything feels calm and fresh. You’ve given yourself a gift of future joy by exacerbating that feeling.

I have seen this habit of taking the tree out so early only in the UK. Even the Vatican lights the tree up on the 15th December.

I have to fight my kids against decorating in Nov for this reason, I like the house to be Xmassy from mid December. I'm a minimalist at heart and struggle with visual clutter.