Question: When, in your opinion or tradition, does the Christmas season start? My wife insists that the tree should be set up today, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and she is indeed busy with that as I write this. I, on the other hand, would rather go looking for a tree on December 23, when they're a lot cheaper. Actually, I would put the tree up before then, but not this early; maybe around December 15th or so, and would leave it up until January 1. In my opinion, while there's no harm in having the tree up earlier, the Christmas season begins on December 24 and ends on January 1.
When I was living at home we always put the tree up after public school let out for the holidays and took it down New Years Day.
For me Dec 1st and down before midnight New Years Eve. However I do have up me tiny tree early this year. I am trying to accumulate a festive spirit
My parents would not put up the tree until Christmas Eve and take it down on Jan. 6th. Today, we put it up when the mood moves us. Probably around the 20th this year as that's when I'll be at my son's. I know some people who leave theirs up year round. They take Elvis' song, If Every Day Could Be Like Christmas literally.
When I was growing up, my dad was a lineman and he was often out in the deep woods, and he would spot out good trees for our next winter’s Christmas tree, and then in December, he would start bringing home trees........ for us, the neighbors, and a huge one for the company that he worked for. We all loved looking at the Christmas tree, and it was always left up as long as possible before the needles got too dry to be safe. Almost always, it made it to my birthday in January, and occasionally , almost to Valentines’ Day ! When my kids were growing up, and I had the job selling Christmas trees at a large lot in Spokane, we would pick out our tree from the leftover ones on Christmas Eve, and take it home and decorate it that night. Since there were always after Christmas sales, we could buy more presents for less money by waiting until after Christmas to do it, so that tradition was pushed back until around New Years. Now, it is just Bobby and I, so we just put up the little fiber optic 2’ tree, somewhere in the living room. It goes up whenever Bobby brings it out from the bedroom closet, and stays there until we get tired of looking at it.
On our land, we have dozens of trees, growing naturally, that would make good Christmas trees, but I can't get back there in the winter without walking two miles, both ways.
Does anyone still send out Christmas cards? I don't send near as many as I did when I was young, but still around 10 or so. This is a cute idea:
We send out some cards, but this year, not the amount of Christmas gifts to family that we had done in previous years...…...when we had the money for gifts. When my wife's sister asked me, thru IM, what we wanted for Christmas, we stated "nothing this year. But thanks for thinking of us." We still have to put up our Christmas Village on our dining room table. It takes up the entire table! We already have Christmas décor put up in our living room, including a nice 4 1/2 foot pre-lite artificial tree. We put Christmas lights on the bushes in front of our apartment, but haven't finished putting up lights on our patio yet. Snow and cold-to-freezing weather came in and we had to stop decorating there. IOW, my wife totally loves decorating for Christmas!