I'm curious - when do you put up your Christmas decorations? I was in Pittsburgh this week and the city was getting their decorations up downtown. That wasn't a big surprise - it takes time to decorate a big city. But as I was driving home from the airport last night, I was seeing houses with their Christmas lights out and turned on. Even saw one house with the in the window. And we're still almost 2 weeks til Thanksgiving!!!

So....if you decorate for Christmas, when do you put the decorations out?

I traditionally put my tree and indoor decorations up the weekend following Thanksgiving. I don't put anything outdoors until I have all the leaves raked up, which is usually before the first weekend in December. IMO, this is plenty of time to put it up. I can't imagine doing it before Thanksgiving.

OK, that's far far too early.

We used to put the tree up after my sister's birthday on the 16th of December. Both our birthdays' are just before Christmas, so when we were young Mum wanted there to be a definite difference between the birthdays and Christmas.

Around here, the city hasn't started putting up decorations yet - it's Show Week this week (provincial public holiday on Friday) so they'll go up next week. Decorations have been going up in shops and shopping centres for about the last week or so, and I noticed that Christmas sweets were in stock at the supermarket on Saturday. It's all far too early!

We put ours up on the 01st December. Our town has the decorations up already and so do most of the shops.

We usually get our tree up the weekend following Thanksgiving. Christmas lights and decorations outside the house usually go up at the same time. I play Christmas music throughout the year, because I like it.... and because with my name, I can pull it off.

With first DH we never did anything until Dec. 1 when we got the tree...always went out and bought a real tree. Since his passing things changed. When it was just me and the kids for years we did the same for a while and then started the weekend after Thanksgiving and that is what we did even when I remarried. But...for some reason the last three years we started doing it on Thanksgiving Day. We have a late dinner so do the decorations outdoors while things are being cooked. I work on the inside the next day. DH will bring my twenty tubs of stuff out of the basement and put the tree up and I do the rest. It's actually not 20 tubs, but maybe 10, lol...just seems like a lot!

We noticed last weekend that some neighbors down the street was putting up lights around the house, yikes! The next day he was out and finished it but I haven't seen them on. Those are the only ones around I have seen other than the store. They don't have any decorations out, just the lights. The city here hasn't put up anything as of yet.

I usually do it on Thanksgiving day or the weekend after Thanksgiving. It really depends on what my schedule is like. There's a lady here in the apartment complex and she's had her christmas wreath out on her door since Halloween.

The weekend before Christmas, no earlier. Just long enough to make it really special, but not so near to Christmas that there are only Charlie Brown trees left in the lot.

My parents were of the generation (and income level) in which the tree *was* the present. I don't go quite that far, but I'm convinced that the earlier you put up the tree & decorations, the more Stuff your kid demands. Same principle explains why stores put up their Christmas displays in October: to get you to buy more Stuff.

Well, not counting the decorations sitting on my counter at the moment that I just bought, I will bring out my decorations on Thanksgiving and get started. I love having a month to look at all my beautiful things and our gorgeous white, silver, and crystal Christmas tree. I'm also very happy come the day after Christmas to get it all put away.

We put our tree up Thanksgiving day, Christmas is my favorite time of year it is when Christ was born , I like to turn all the lights out and watch the lights on the tree.Christmas is such a short window I like to enjoy my tree for a wee bit

I usually put up my xmas stuff thanksgiving weekend. It's a long weekend, so there's plenty of time to get everything up.

We put up our tree and decorate the outside of our house the day after Thanksgiving. I leave the lights all shining brightly til January 2nd.

My decorations always go up the weekend before Thanksgiving. I don't light the decorations until after Thanksgiving, though. I typically leave town on the Monday or Tuesday before Thanksgiving and spend the entire week with my family. So, I know that it would be that next weekend before I would have enough time to decorate if I don't do it before Thanksgiving. The decorations always come down on the Saturday after New Year's.

Like several of you mentioned, I love our Christmas decorations also. I enjoy having them out in the house (at least for a few weeks). I'm ready for them to be out of the way though the same time as scgirl puts hers up, usually the first Saturday after New Years.

I'm a Christmas fanatic, I start my decorating on Thanksgiving and don't stop till Christmas day!

Last year, we bought a pre-lit artificial tree and it sat in the box in the middle of our living room until a few days before Christmas. I made jokes about decorating the box and being done with it... that's OK, I guess, because we took it down right before our annual St. Patty's Day party. It's so difficult to find a time in our schedules to get shopping done, hit multiple holiday parties and decorate a tree! I can blame one thing, though. I ordered the nice plastic bozes with cubbies for each ornament and they were on backorder so I didn't even get them until March 10th. Order early!!!