Jump to content

Christmas celebrators: When do you put up your tree?


Grumpy Alien

TREEEEEES  

104 members have voted

  1. 1. When do you put up your tree?

    • Before December
      19
    • December 1-10
      31
    • December 11-20
      26
    • December 21-23
      13
    • December 24
      7
    • December 25
      0
    • After December 25
      0
    • I don’t celebrate, I just like polls
      11
    • I do celebrate but don’t like trees
      6
    • Other
      6
  2. 2. Real or fake?

    • Real tree
      29
    • Artificial tree
      55
    • Both
      6
    • Neither
      11
    • I hate/don’t celebrate Christmas but might hug trees
      9
    • Trees are ugly
      0

This poll is closed to new votes


Recommended Posts

Comment with your answer and why? Is it traditional in your cultural or your family or just personal preference?

 

If I had my way, I’d put up my tree at the end of November. (Which is how I always did it in my family.) Husband doesn’t like to start until December so December 1st it is! I hate real trees and I hate only having decorations up for a short amount of time. (Such a waste of effort to not enjoy it for long!)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Currently in an appartment for my studies. I should put it up this week-end but I'm busy studying so it might end up being later than that...

 

Back home with my family we put it up at the end of November (around my birthday the 26th) and it stays up until 29 January (my father's birthday)

Mostly because along with the Christmas tree (artificial btw) we have a giant Christmas-crib. 

So I say Christmas crib but it's more like a whole village who takes up half a quarter of the dining room.

It's pretty traditionnal in France I guess, and my dad's family is catholic too.

I'm personnally atheist but it's a nice family thing. I like Christmas trees & Christmas itself. We buy santon all together and then we spend time building the whole village with my mom & sis.

Link to post
Share on other sites

We put it up on Christmas Eve. It's a Christmas tree after all, not an Advent tree or a December tree...

Traditionally the tree stays up until Epiphany (6th January) in Protestant households or even until Candlemas (February 2nd) in Catholic households. Since it's a real tree it wouldn't keep its needles much longer meaning that putting it up before Christmas Eve wouldn't work.

Link to post
Share on other sites

In the US, I had it up late November to mid January to get good use out of it. I grew up in a Protestant household and went to Catholic school but I’ve never heard of epiphany of candlemas. I did have relatives that celebrated Three Kings Day (January 6th) in addition to Christmas. (Mexican tradition.) 

Link to post
Share on other sites

A christmas crib looks like this, it's the nativity scene 

Spoiler

christmas-1875885_960_720.png

 

Ours is much bigger, so it's more like a village like I said (I asked my sister for a picture)

Spoiler

59y1.jpg

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I generally decorate the tree about mid-December.  I love real trees, and have a potted tree from last year that has grown really well.  I have a few vintage decorations but Cat can damage those so tend to keep to more robust modern decorations that are made in a traditional way.  I have earmarked next weekend as my tree decorating weekend this year.

Link to post
Share on other sites

We're putting it up between the 21st-23rd. Usually we're getting a real one with roots. Once the season gets warmer again we plant it in our garden or in the forest around our house. Grandma hates artificial ones for some reason, I don't care that much but real plants are always nice.

Despite this, our cousin comes around that date since she and her family are celebrating with us and she always wants to help decorate it. She's 10. On 24th we're usually too busy to do any decoration anymore, so everything necessary (besides cooking has to be done the days before), we're the household that welcomes (almost) the entirety of our family and some arrive rather early.

 

However, we don't start earlier in the month because December is just a normal school-uni-business-month and in order to get the gifts and all that s*** somebody has to be sacrificed, to give up some of the rare good called free-time and go on the great adventure of shopping in the city on a Saturday. Since a few years, it's usually me.

Link to post
Share on other sites

If I put up a tree I usually do it after US Thanksgiving, but fairly early in December, because I like to enjoy it for a good while. Sometimes I put up a real one and sometimes artificial. Depends on various circumstances (how much time I will be at home, if I have a cat or cats or not, how much I want to have a real tree vs how easy an artificial one can be, etc.). I'd probably take a real one down within the first week of January. A fake one might stay up a bit longer depending on how I feel. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
WanderingKate

I generally try to put it up about two or three weeks before Christmas, but it generally depends on when I have the time for it, because of course it's not just assembling the tree but hauling all the ornaments up the stairs and figuring out the those tiny nuiscance Christmas lights that never work :D

I always get a fake tree, because Christmas trees can unfortunately trigger issues with asthma. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere

Somewhere at the tail end of second decade of December or in the last days before Christmas Eve - somewhere between 17th and 22nd, I would say.

I have a small artificial tree. It's just more comfortable - completely reusable (this tree has been used for almost the last 30 years), less cleaning up afterwards, and also very blunt needles of an artificial spruce (on my tree they aren't even hard) are much less unpleasant to manipulate when putting decorations on the tree.

An example from my teamania: while I don't use a real Christmas tree, I have used spruce needles in making a tea. Two years ago before Christmas I asked my mom to get me a little spruce branch. (Tea recipe was something like: lapsang souchong - Chinese smoked black tea, mint, black pepper, allspice, dried juniper berries, spruce needles. It was fine, very savory* and good for my preferred kind of breakfast - sandwiches with a vegetable spread; at that time, I think, my favourite soy and dill spread was still available, since then it was unfortunately discontinued.) I washed it and dried it on a paper towel, and when the needles were already starting to fall off, I carefully colected most of them into a paper bag and used a part in the tea. Still, I had to pull some needled off the sprig and anyway, both when pulling them and collecting them, I did prick my fingers with several needles...

 

*More tea offtopic: perhaps since I'm an open eater of sweets ;), it's a little suprising to some people that I have completely stopped sweetening tea (and I never used much sugar in my tea, at most one spoon, rather flat and smaller than a typical teaspoon) and I like rather bitter teas. A lot of green teas are advertised as "having almost no bitter flavour", but for a typical breakfast I need something else - precisely a more bitter kind of tea...

Link to post
Share on other sites

@Nowhere Girl I hope you don’t mind that I’m about to PM you about teas!

Link to post
Share on other sites

I put mine up the day after Thanksgiving, so I put mine up a few days ago. It's an artificial one, less messy. I don't remember when we put the tree up when I was growing up, but the past few years my mom has been putting her's up the day after Thanksgiving as well.

Link to post
Share on other sites

We usually put up our tree - and most of the decorations, really - a week or two into December. We do get real trees, which I'm guessing is because of tradition and to save room in the garage.

 

The space under the tree is used for presents, though there's been a little less emphasis on shopping with each passing year. Perhaps this is for the best. It doesn't always seem necessary to go overboard with buying things and/or writing a list, you know?

Link to post
Share on other sites

We put up our tree yesterday. :P Which is the earliest I think we ever have. We usually wait until a bit into December. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

We usually put it up around 20-22 December (so I voted 21-23), and then leave it a bit into the New Year, latest the 6th of January (Three Kings) .

In the Netherlands we also celebrate Sinterklaas, so you definitely can't put up the tree before the 5th :lol: , at least not in our family.

 

And we always use an artificial tree. The last one lasted 20 years, so I think that's a pretty good deal. But at some point it started shedding more and more needles :lol:

Link to post
Share on other sites
Janus the Fox

The tree is up a week before December, nothing else and this year bought a tree already decorated.  This is about as much we can physically do between us these days.

Link to post
Share on other sites

my family always puts up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. it’s been an artificial tree since i was like 5 just because of safety reasons when we lived in AK

Link to post
Share on other sites

Artificial tree, put it up some random time in December 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I am not fond of Christmas trees, I guess it comes from childhood and pets who think the tree was something for them to enjoy. Lights on the christmas tree also always made me nervous and paranoid about fires. 

 

I don't think I'll have a Christmas tree. Maybe see if I could get a decorative thing though. 

 

Currently I only have 1 Christmas decoration

Link to post
Share on other sites
Back to Avalon

I don't put up a tree because my cat would probably climb it. She did when she was a kitten, and I have no reason to think she wouldn't now. Plus she's bigger now, so she could do more damage. And fluffier, so getting pine sap in her fur would be a bigger mess.

Link to post
Share on other sites

My mom decided to put up her tree on the 24th of november and it's a fake.

Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, Back to Avalon said:

I don't put up a tree because my cat would probably climb it. She did when she was a kitten, and I have no reason to think she wouldn't now. Plus she's bigger now, so she could do more damage. And fluffier, so getting pine sap in her fur would be a bigger mess.

Just watched a Jackson Galaxy video about Christmas trees and cats. He had some suggestions in case a person really wants a real tree, but his main suggestion was to not get one or put up an artificial tree.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Back to Avalon

I seem to remember that years ago a couple of my late cats knocked over an artificial tree, so that really only solves the pine sap problem.

Link to post
Share on other sites

And the dangers of eating pine needles and drinking toxic tree water.

 

He did suggest anchoring a tree, and giving them an alternative (like a cat tree for them). There was more to the video than that.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Mine goes up on or around Bonfire Night (5th of November ish) because I REALLY like Christmas decorations 

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Zeecitroen said:

Mine goes up on or around Bonfire Night (5th of November ish) because I REALLY like Christmas decorations 

GREAT IDEA

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...