A post in another thread prompted me to ask this. I thought if I asked it there, it might derail the thread.
When I was a kid, we usually put up our Christmas tree and decorations/lights about two weeks before Christmas. Sometimes it may have been slightly earlier to get it done on a weekend, but never before the second week of December.
Mom would put on Johnny Mathis' Christmas 8-track tapes (yes, it was the 70's) and she would start with the lights, the garland, and for whatever reason a set of white glittered butterflies and red shiny cherries, setting a pattern. Then we could join in with the random ornaments collected over the years.
We always took everything down on New Year's Day.
Lately, in my own home I've been thinking about doing it earlier, although I've basically continued her traditions (including Johnny Mathis - adding Mariah Carey - and Emmett Otter.) No butterflies or cherries, but I do make a matched pattern of angels before putting up the mismatched (and lots of Disney) stuff.
Time seems to go faster as you get older, and the season seems shorter. I own two retail stores, so even if we said we'd put the tree up on Thanksgiving night, I'm usually at work on Thanksgiving night putting on the finishing touches for "Black Friday" morning.
Putting it up before Thanksgiving dinner is a line I can't cross. Plus we have a birthday 12/3 and I don't like to mix that up with Christmas.
We typically end up doing it in early December, but last year it ended up being really late, like a week before Christmas, and I didn't feel like that was long enough, so I left them up longer after New Year's!
Anyway, what do you do? It can be any holiday, year round.
When I was a kid, we usually put up our Christmas tree and decorations/lights about two weeks before Christmas. Sometimes it may have been slightly earlier to get it done on a weekend, but never before the second week of December.
Mom would put on Johnny Mathis' Christmas 8-track tapes (yes, it was the 70's) and she would start with the lights, the garland, and for whatever reason a set of white glittered butterflies and red shiny cherries, setting a pattern. Then we could join in with the random ornaments collected over the years.
We always took everything down on New Year's Day.
Lately, in my own home I've been thinking about doing it earlier, although I've basically continued her traditions (including Johnny Mathis - adding Mariah Carey - and Emmett Otter.) No butterflies or cherries, but I do make a matched pattern of angels before putting up the mismatched (and lots of Disney) stuff.
Time seems to go faster as you get older, and the season seems shorter. I own two retail stores, so even if we said we'd put the tree up on Thanksgiving night, I'm usually at work on Thanksgiving night putting on the finishing touches for "Black Friday" morning.
Putting it up before Thanksgiving dinner is a line I can't cross. Plus we have a birthday 12/3 and I don't like to mix that up with Christmas.
We typically end up doing it in early December, but last year it ended up being really late, like a week before Christmas, and I didn't feel like that was long enough, so I left them up longer after New Year's!
Anyway, what do you do? It can be any holiday, year round.
. I almost always will take them down shortly after New Year's Day. I agree that doing it all so late really makes it feel almost not worth all of the effort. I love that you kept up your family traditions, we did not have many, but I always wish that we did.
