For those who do Xmas trees

When I first married my husband we had a huge fight over how Xmas would be handled because we had clashing traditions. My family, when I was tiny, would put the tree up on Xmas Eve so that my baby bro and I would think that Santa had brought it. (Yes, yes, very 'Whoville'. Somwehere around here are pics of me looking very Cindy-Lou-Who discovering the tree the next morning. :))

My hubby's family puts theirs up on Thanksgiving day or the day after.

Well, frankly he won out. Not that we put it up that early but I never did get to surprise our kids with the tree on Xmas morning and now it's too late because they are old enough to know the tree is in a box in the shed.

Anyway, the point of this rambling question is when does your family put up the tree? :)

This year, we put the tree up today. :D

My husband is in a very Christmasy mood.

I couldn't bear to quash his feelings and make him wait. *l*

This year though, he is waiting simply because there is no room for a tree in this poor little house. I suspect it may go up very close to Xmas this year for that reason.

yet option?

I'm on my own, no kids, but I love the lights. :-)

as an adult I gravitate to the little bitty faerie lights ones.

:hi:

It makes a real mess, impossible to clean up after, and to get it on involves a lot of unpleasant stickly sensations...

a nostalgia for the real deal. :P

If you're gonna haul all that crap out, it needs to stay out for a while. This year we won't be decorating though. My partners mom is in VERY poor health and will very likely not live through the weekend. Neither of us will be in the mood (luckily, there are no children involved)

He's 200 miles away with her and I'm stuck here (we have out of town guests staying with us until Sunday).

(depending of course which day of the week Christmas fell on), so I am of the wait a while school of tree decorating.

I often have my outside stuff done before the tree comes down from the attic; kind of do it in phases.

However I usually don't take it down until Twelfth Night, not for religious reasons, just because it is a lot of work and we enjoy looking at it. I have never decorated my home for Christmas during Thanksgiving, ever. Just too early.

My mother in law was a Thanksgiving weekend tree person and it came down New Years Day.

I expect my daughter and I will get the tree down around the 11th or so.I have too much to do between now and then to fool with decorating my house.

during my younger years, the tree went up a few weeks before xmas, but every year, the tree would go up about a day or two earlier than the year before...and pretty soon, my mom wanted the thing up on thanksgiving day, after dinner...and my dad and her had a big fight on when to have it up, and my mother won, and since i've been in highschool thing is up thanksgiving day...my wife is the same way, actually...i had to fight her the past week, to stop her from putting it up before thanksgiving, she wanted it up last sunday, and i was like, thanksgiving is just a few days away, you can wait...:)

long and for me it takes the fun out of it. Xmas day is anticlimatic by then.

That would be my thing....also, my kid likes to help put it up.

It really is a "whenever" sort of thing. We put ours up today just because....but last year we did it the second week of December or so.

Xmas, which is January 6th or 7th depending on who you ask.

January 6 - it's also my son's birthday! :)

get Russian Xmas and his birthday flipped around. And every year his feelings would get slightly dented because he thought he was forgotten.

I tried to pop out son number two on his dad's b-day, but he stuck it out 5 more days. :)

we would go to the tree farm and get it the weekend before. It was really fun.

I suspect we put it up then since my p's were so tired from taking care of 5 kids!

Now we put it up at my house about 2 weeks before, since that's when my husband's family put one up. It's nice to enjoy it a little longer and we leave it up til the first week of January, or at least before Feb!

And I love a real tree. I am adamant about that, since nothing smells as good.

so I had to say "whenever the hell I get around to it."

One year, all I could manage was a string of lights draped around my ficus tree. Oh, and handmade ornaments with the cat's names on them.

That's about all I can say, because it depends on the year. :hi:

Granted, it's a small one that sits on a table, but there you have it. :D

I recall as a young 'un, my dad didn't want to buy a tree. So on his way home from work one Christmas Eve, he'd case out which of the stands were closing down with trees left over. Then we'd pack into the car and drive to this stand. I recall this happened a couple of times. But I never decorated a tree growing up before Christmas Eve.

Now we just go buy the thing, a stand is within walking distance from the house and drag it in a week before Christmas.

.

where we toast the first person to say "fuck" when putting up the tree. It isn't the easiest thing to do.

It usually takes 2 days for Mr GoG to get the lights on, because we like a big full tree...around 9 feet tall.

It's been a number of years since we actually had the tree entirely decorated by Christmas. So we spend a little time decorating on Christmas Day, too.

The tough part is getting the tree taken down. If it's still up a week before Valentine's Day, I just do it myself, and to hell with whatever organized "system" he's got for storing etc...

and she loved it, but never tried to replicate the tradition because she wanted to involve us kids in the decorating and the tree selection, etc. Sometimes I've thought it might be cool if, when I was three or four and just becoming aware of christmas, etc., i'd've had one of those christmas morning surprise trees to look back on, but overall some of the best family times I remember are picking out the tree, going into the mountains to cut our own tree, and decorating the tree with my mom, sifting the memories out of each of the ornaments, some of them older than she was ...

land to pick out and cut down our own tree. Those were some happy times, except for the year we got a skunk spruce. :P

basically just a tree for me to enjoy. Next week we'll put up the big tree in the living room.

my mom started getting little bitty 12 inch table top trees that could be replanted in in the spring.

They were very cute. Maybe I will see if I can get one. That way I can enjoy the smell of a big tree without actually having one.

Haul the fake 4ft tree and the boxes of decorations out of the garage. Put the bears and other stuff on the mantle and the wreaths outside. Did it during the last half of the Longhorn-Aggie game.

Comes down Epiphany - all decorations down before sun-set otherwise it's bad luck.