Christmas Decorating: How early is too early?
 

I have a few friends who started decorating for Christmas the day after Halloween. I've been giving them a hard time, as I have always been one who waits until the weekend after Thanksgiving. One friend of mine who lives in Texas puts up 10 trees and decorates them all (which having more than one tree is a whole other subject), so she said she needs to get started early. Another friend decorates the inside of her home throughout the month of November, but waits until the weekend after Thanksgiving to decorate outside. Certain stores even start selling trees and decorations before Halloween nowadays.

So, what how early do think is too early?

Although I agree with the weekend of/after Thanksgiving. I don't think the weekend before Thanksgiving as too early. Any time before mid-November, including around Halloween is too early. I saw stores that had Christmas in September. Ridiculous!!

Right after Thanksgiving.

Totally agree. Christmas has almost devoured Thanksgiving, so now it's starting to nibble on Halloween. Where does the madness end! :)

In our bedroom, we keep a 4 foot, fully decorated Christmas tree up all year round. Provides just the right lighting for that area, and she loves to look at the sentimental ornaments. ( that, and I'm too lazy to take it down, hehe )

Whatever makes folks happy, really. I'd say anything prior to December feels too early for outside lights or a big ass living room tree.. but whatever floats your boats, go nuts.

That reminds me... My dad's basement is his "man cave" (even though he's got the entire house to himself). It's fully decorated with Chiefs stuff. He signed up a long time ago to receive a Chiefs ornament each year (and he doesn't know how or where to go to cancel...lol). He used to keep a tree up year round with red lights on it along with the ornaments he's received over the years. Finally took it down to make room for a huge TV, though. It was his Chiefs tree January through November, and his Christmas tree in December.

Thanksgiving or Black Friday, never before.

Haaaaa!!!! I like that. Your dad has it going on.

My dad used to get drunk, take a piss on the tree, and then stumble face first into the tree.. knocking it over. Happened every year at different points of December.

Ah... Good times.

Any time before Thanksgiving is over is too soon. Black Friday at the earliest. Let Thanksgiving have it's day.

I am almost done with the outside. I just have to swap out my blow up turkey for a blow up LED christmas tree and hang an LED snow flake.

BUT- I was figuring there would be the possibility of snow on the roof by now. Not have 3 weeks of 60's. It has been one of the best autumns ever. I am in Minnesota. Many times we have snow at Thanksgiving. I am not interested being on the roof with snow on it.

I don't turn them on until Friday of T-giving weekend. The comment from Lew says it all.
We do not do the inside until Friday of TG.

My last thread about lights
http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showt...ristmas+lights

Weekend of Black Friday, after everyone gets the steals.

Weekend of Thanksgiving, though I would allow HANGING of lights early for weather and safety purposes if they aren't turned on.

Our neighbor has these huge windows in the front of their house where they have their Christmas tree setup. They leave that bitch up all year round.

I set up the tree on Wednesday before Thanksgiving and decorate on Thursday.

Any time before that seems strange, especially this year, when it's 95 every day this week and likely next.

Flawed poll. I never decorate for Christmas.
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I don't decorate for Xmas. I drive around town taking other people's decorations down when they are not home. It's a tradition.

Dec 20.

LMAO

I already pulled all my sh*t out

Sounds spot on, since it sounds very similar to what your team has done in free agency and then claiming those decorations for their own

I normally begin "planning" right after Halloween and start going up and down the ladder in early November. Why? I'm an old fart and I like to get it done while the weather is decent. We then turn them on Thanksgiving night - right after the Plaza.

As the years go by I do less and less.
It is just becoming a headache. Anymore we have a small artificial tree, like 16 inches already lit up, and that's all we do inside.
Outside I do some lights on a bike bridge by my lake. This usually just takes a couple hours to set up, and I have so many people expecting me to do it, so I just cant stop and disappoint them.

Oh, and Only after Thanksgiving Day

I haven't decorated for Christmas since about 1996. My wife liked to do it until a few years ago, but I never really noticed when she did it.

That has to be the weakest insult I've ever read on this board.

^

He was slamming the Broncos, so I'm willing to give him some credit.

Decorate on December 1st, take them down New Years day

I'll put lights up outside right after Thanksgiving but we don't get a tree until around the 7-10th of December. Any earlier and it dries out by Christmas. My wife decorates inside and will just start randomly putting stuff up starting after Thanksgiving.

One holiday at a time.

Although I don't blame anyone who goes puts up exterior lights early while the weather is nice.

It depends on what the decoration is or where it will be placed. We start Thanksgiving day while the family is all together and go from there.

I guess if someone is going to pay another person or company to put up lights they might have to have it done on the installers schedule so that is another thing that would cause a variation in a wanted and actual timeline.

Friday night after Thanksgiving the tree goes up. Love setting up the tree with the Lady, listening to Christmas music, drinking wine. Warm and fuzzy.

Seems like people get earlier and earlier each year. I know a guy who's starts setting things up in September, but he has a huge presentation

I'm ok with you setting it up early like late October/early November.

But I don't think lights should be turned on until Thanksgiving.

But whatever makes people feel better about their miserable lives.

That is ****ed up! Sorry man.

It sounds like most of you have fake trees. Anyone here still get real ones?

Always. Even in Phoenix. Not the same experience but because I am in Phoenix, I get a real one every year. Reminds me of home.

Our trees come from Oregon.

• Douglas fir
• Grand fir
• Noble fir
• Nordmann fir

appreciate that.. long ago though.. no problem.

Sucked to be so young to learn that Santa was merely my drunk, soiled father.. Santa trunks still down to his ankles.. face buried into the fallen tree.. bag with one shitty toy flipped over.. on Christmas morning.

Learned early that it was better to laugh than to cry... :D

Yugest fights my parents ever got in was over Christmas. The only time I remember my dad being really drunk was over Christmas.

I almost gave him pity rep for it.

Yeah, a shame that holidays can bring out so much stress, anxiety, and self-medicating.. instead of what it's truly meant to be eliciting.

oh yeah! right there!

My youngest was born one week before Christmas, during a Christmas tune by Elvis...

"Well it's Christmas time baaaby...."

cut an inch off the bottom before you put in water.

I would go fake but the wife still wants a real tree, so every year, we head up in the mountains to get one. It's only $5 for a permit and about a 1/2 hour drive from our house, depending on the roads. Plus the dog loves running around in the snowy woods so we go.

When we lived in Oregon, we loved the grand firs but natural firs here are too spindly. We usually get a blue spruce since they are sturdier when small. They are also prickly which helps keep the cats out of the tree.

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...bd&oe=58D508E7

Heh. We usually have to cut a foot or so off (see my picture). It's always a fresh cut.

I bought a real tree from Home Depot the first year in my home (2003).

It's soooo dry and hot here, even December, that the tree barely lasted two weeks.

I just purchased our third tree since and I'm hoping it'll last 5 years.

Love it! We did that once when we lived in Colorado.

AZ here. Cut a couple of inches off the bottom, put the tree in a bucket of hot, sugary water overnight. Do it again in the morning for a few hours. Then mount in your stand, put a teaspoon of sugar in the water reservoir at each water refill (hot).

Mine last through New Years.

never heard about adding sugar!

:hmmm:

Do the same for all of those roses you get your wife. Makes them last much longer. Warm water prevents the drooping just below the head as warm water is drawn up through the stem better. Otherwise the water doesn't even get that far, thus the droop and soft heads.

A bit of clear soda works well.

Does your cat **** with your tree?

Not at all. But he's a lazy ****. The trick there is to not hang you balls too low.

Our cat is a crazy, deranged **** (likely from Cali) that bites at everything including the lower branches of our fake tree. Also, I am too OCD for having pine needles falling off onto the ground everyday. Plus I can only imagine the cat's puke with pine needles in it.

Toonces loves putting up the tree. He hangs out and watches, gets to wear a red lace necklace with a bell around his neck and play with the garland. His morning after shits are a heap of silver.

Spray some vinegar water on those lower limbs my man.

We had a nice house plant we just bought. I sprayed the shit out of it with vinegar. Put citrus rinds lining the pot.

Went to watch a movie.

Within 10 minutes I hear this loud scrunching sound and that bitch was standing up pulling the leaves out of that plant one by one!

She's an unstoppable black cat with no regard for herself or others.

That's just bad parenting. Your fault you can't have a nice tree.

Our cats leave the tree alone but part of that is the prickly needles. They do love to drink the water out of the holder though. I guess they like sap flavored water.

We do make sure the ornaments on the lower branches are unbreakable. In fact, we have some that are large colored bells so it's obvious when someone is messing with the tree.

If she wasn't so hilarious, I open the door and let her run away.


I'm not a big holiday guy anyway so an easy to get and place fake tree is fine by me. I'll just hop on over to your place eDave(if that is your real name) to see a real tree.

I appreciate the info but I'm good with an LED prelit tree at this point.

The city also charges $50 dollars to pick up the tree so in the end, it's not really worth the expense and trouble.

You ever heard of a barrel, gasoline and a match?!

I live in a Fire Zone.

That would cost me like $10,000 dollars.

I know. That was the joke.


I feel I am very misunderstood on this board sometimes. :(

LMAO

I wasn't sure if you were setting me up or making a funny.

Sorry, Broheem.

Dude no offense, maybe I missed something, but that is an ugly thin worthless looking tree.

If I read it right, he would like for you to burn your house down.

No worries. I am sure half of the rednecks in the DC forum would actually still think this is a good idea even knowing where you live.

It cleaned up nice after we trimmed it up. The ones out in the woods never look like the tree farmed trees.

The "Christmas Tree" isn't universal. Our local Costco is selling trees like the those in his picture.

I often wonder how many people on CP have actually lived or visited outside their zip code.

Just a reminder I traveled for a little over 15 years, flying and driving, all across this country, Canada, Mexico, and Russia. There is only 4 states that I have not spent at least one month in at various times of the year.
All the retail stores in this area also sell trees that don't look much different. It is the cheapest made and doesn't have the strength to hold many decorations. Just look at eDaves post from Charlie Brown for correlation.

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I'll post a pic next time I'm at Costco.

Like I said and meant it, I was not trying to be mean. Like he said it is harder to find real nice trees in the woods.

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One thing to consider is that the ice and snow still on the tree really deforms it. Once that all melts, the tree kind of "fluffs up". I couldn't find a picture of this tree after we had it set up but this is what the spruce typically look like. They are plenty sturdy enough for decorations, though I only had lights on this one so far. The one we had last year was shorter than this one but similar otherwise.

I decorated for Christmas as I took down the Halloween shit.

No lights or trees - just lots of other tchotchke. We do an intense 30 days of Hellf in December so it's nice to have a month to enjoy my decorations in peace.

Plus **** social rules that don't effect anyone else.

We always had artificial trees when I was growing up. One year we had a cat that would not stay out of the tree, so we actually hung it from the ceiling. I wish I could find that picture.

Always.

Love reading about your memories. I'm really looking forward to starting Christmas traditions with my lil man. I know he will have new pj's each year, and we'll bake cookies on Christmas. Definitely start getting a new ornament each year, which he'll start picking out once he's old enough.

The only thing that I think I'm going to be willing to do prior to Thanksgiving is the picture with Santa. Bass Pro has a wonderland that they set up each year. He's obviously not old enough to enjoy all of that yet (they do crafts, have games, etc.), but I like the cottage in the background vs. the big red chair they have at the mall.

All of my kids were brave kids. Took them everywhere. Every single one of them freaked out about Santa. Ranging from tears to wide eyed stranger danger stares. They're my favorite pictures... Besides the ones with the creepy Easter Bunnies.

He's definitly old enough to enjoy the lights, sounds, and all the kid chaos. But I'm crazy lady now. My first born and I huddled in a quiet cave for her first couple years.

Also, my favorite bar here hangs it's tree upside down. Now I know where we're going if you make it this way.

I know a few that have hung trees upside down for fun. Forgot why.
This year it could be a protest from Kapernack.

Upside down, huh? That would be a sight. Like a chandelier or something. We hung ours upside up. It was already decorated, and dad just got fed up with the cat. Forget how he did it, but he just lifted it up and hung it from a hook that normally held a hanging lamp we had.