One of the most common questions I have heard from other people who ask me about Christmas decorations, is when should you start decorating for Christmas?
It seems like every year, stores start displaying their Christmas decorations earlier and earlier. In fact, right now it’s not even October and I have seen Christmas displays set up at the past 3 department/discount stores that I have gone to in the past 2 weeks.
It may surprise you that even I can get burned out over Christmas and that is the last thing you want as it just makes for a bad holiday. When you start decorating and watching Christmas movies in October it can be really easy to get burned out and not really see the real reason behind Christmas and get to enjoy the actual holiday.
Plus, not to mention there is another great holiday that comes before Christmas that I believe needs to be celebrated and not just brushed aside.
When Do I Start My Christmas Decorating?
When it comes to the outdoor decorations, I do have to say that my husband will hang our Christmas lights a lot earlier than when we start decorating inside the home. This is only because we live in an area where it can get quite cold, quite fast and you really don’t want to be on the roof in when it is snowing or only 30 degrees outside.
So, he will put up the lights sometime in late October or early November depending on his schedule and what the weather is like. We don’t put out our other outdoor Christmas decorations until later though.
When it comes to decorating for the holidays inside my home, we don’t start until the day after Thanksgiving. In our family, we like to celebrate and look forward to Thanksgiving and that is sort of hard to do when you have a Christmas tree staring at you from the other room.
Instead of spending all of Black Friday shopping at the stores, our family likes to spend it getting all the Christmas decorations down from the attic and enjoying some time together decorating the house and the Christmas tree. This is also when we finish putting up all of our outdoor decor items and finally turn on the Christmas lights as well.
We have a pretty good system down so that we are able to not only enjoy decorating but also get all the decorating done in one day. I do have to say that it has taken some time to get it all down and we may have had to spend a few dollars on some must-have items to make the decorating easier as well.
When Should You Start Decorating for Christmas?
This is a question that only you and your family can answer as there really is no right or wrong answer.
I know that some people like to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving and have all the beautiful decor for that holiday as well. Even though that may not be how our family does, it doesn’t mean it is wrong. It just means some people are different and have different traditions.
On the other hand I have a friend who will not put up one single Christmas decoration until December 1st. That is her choice because she doesn’t think the decorations should be up for longer than a month before the holiday.
I also knew this other person who had a family tradition of putting up their Christmas decorations two weeks before Christmas but would not decorate the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve. That was their tradition to get together on December 24 and decorate the tree as a family.
As you can see there are all kinds of different beliefs and traditions when it comes to decorating for Christmas.
One word of advice is that I would recommend that you don’t start too early. As mentioned you don’t want to get burned out on Christmas but you also don’t want to be the crazy neighbors who have Christmas lights on in September.
So, now that I have shared a little bit about my Christmas decorating timeline and traditions, when do you start decorating for Christmas?