When do you deck the halls (ie put the christmas tree up)

[whomovedmychocolate]

I'm of the 'first weekend in December' school of thought, but DH reckons advent is 28 days not 25 . Personally I don't give a crap because neither of us are christians but we do have a mahoosive ugly fabric advent wall hanging with pockets big enough for a big bar of chocolate per day so I wouldn't want to wait too long and miss some scoffing opps.

The first Sunday of Advent is 29thNov so we're putting them up on Sat - hooray.

We usually buy ours as close to the 11th as possible as that was my mum's birthday Might change it slightly this year though because I cried all the way through decorating it last year and just couldn't face it and that's not fair on the dc's. What a numpty

We started decorating for Christmas last Thursday (but I had already been shopping for decorations for a fortnight).

We bought a fir wreath and put it on our front door, and decorated it with a little bird, a bird house and some spray snow.

We put DD's wooden farm building on a table in the hall, decked it with twinkly LED fairy lights and put her collection of Schleich animals around and in it, with three little Christmassy (but non religious) figures.

Yesterday we stuck large gold stars on DD's bedroom window and sprayed snow around the bottom of the window.

We will continue like this, doing a little every day or two, for a couple of weeks until we buy the Christmas tree.

Totally depends upon my shifts at work as tree decoration is my task. This year it will either be 6th-10th Dec or the week after ie before 17th.

I have no idea where we will put the tree this year as since last Xmas dp has bought a 50inch plasma tv which the furniture had to be rearranged to accomodate.

Oh Helsbels4, am for you. I hope it's easier this year.

Ours will go up on the 14th - the day after my birthday.

Tree up on Sunday 14th because that's when the local tree sale is.
I was just up in the loft getting the advent calendar and bits to decorate a wreath. Christmas seems a bit early this year - xmas fair on Friday, school nativity is next week.

20th december-day after ds2 birthday.

The weeked before Christmas (if Christmas is on a weekend or a Monday then we might do it the weekend before). That means you get into the christmas spirit and start the hype close to the big day, stringing it out is a bad idea IMO. Also if you put the treee up late then it can still be up on 12th night without shedding half its leaves.

Advent calenders are the only exception. They all start on 1 December so that is when they are put on display.

xmas eve... If I put it up any earlier the ds's, dog, I was going to say cat, but he's no longer with us will have it down/eaten/ripped/dismantled and redecorated etc etc

ingles2 - do you put all the decorations up xmas eve or just the tree?

Ours has always gone up the weekend closest to the 11th which is DH's birthday, but this year we'll be picking DD up from university that weekend. DS is back a few days erlier, so I expect he'll probably do it sometime during that week - he always seems the keenest on it, he was the one who decided last year that we needed a new tree - ours was about 25 years old.

When you put out your nativity scene,do you put baby jesus in the cradle after your lo have gone to bed on christmas eve,mine used to love checking on christmas morning,i used to love hearing them shout, he's here,he's born

Two Sundays before maximum
One Sunday before minimum

Depends what we've got on during the month

dc's are already asking us if we can get a tree now

depends where we are going to be at Christmas ...

if we are spending Christmas at home (a rare occurence!) then the tree goes up around the 20th as I like it to last ...

if we are going away then either I don't bother at all (but don't like disappointing dd nowadays!) or tree + all the decorations go up around the first or second week of December so that we get to flavour our own bit of Christmas spirit before heading off for distant lands ...

we don't have any other decorations nappyaddict. Maybe a few lights over the fireplace but other wise just the tree.
What have you got then? and am I missing out?

A tree only

Mid-December

around 13th this year. I've seen decorations up for the last week up here in Cumbria. Doesn't seem right really

ingles - we have a wreath, mistletoe, nativity scene, garlands, bowls with cones and baubles in.

Normally weekend after DD finishes school -s around the 13th Dec. But we are away thatw eek this year so it will be the 20th Dec, very late for us.

When I was a child it was always Christmas Eve, but DH prefers it up a bit sooner so we'll probably do it on the 20th. I must admit that I do love it when the tree is up.

WMMC - can I hijack and add another question in: Do you buy some new decorations every year? I see all these decorations in the shops and I always wonder who they are for? I guess I bought decorations a few at a time in my 20s, but now I barely have space for all of them on the tree, so where I'd put any new ones I don't know?!

Before we had Ds I'd never put it up before 21 December but now he's old enough to start appreciating it we'll probably put it up next Saturday or Sunday

Advent calendar/tree goes up on the 1st, as does the small fibre optic tree.

Thinking perhaps main tree will go up on the 8th. Have to say it honestly never occurred to me NOT to have a tree up when the kids were little, but then they would both have been about 5-6 months at Christmas (no idea but suspect not crawling at that point) - then next Christmas old enough to know better! Although we did have issues with the cat a couple of times (and he was definitely old enough to know better!)

Me - As late as I can get away with
Dh - as early as he can get away with

Dh likes a huge real tree that takes over the lounge and drops needles everywhere (even if we get the non-drop sort) because we have it so long.

Last year we didn't think I'd be home for Christmas so he got his own way.

This year I'm saying we're not doing decs until after ds2's first birthday on the 11th.

Xmas Eve. Stays up until 12th night.