Calm Down, It's Still November

I understand shops putting their Christmas decorations up, in what feels like August, because it's a marketing ploy.

Maybe I've not noticed it before, but this year, people are putting their decorations up in November!

For the record, I love Christmas! It's hard work and stressful, especially leading up to it buying presents and getting them wrapped, but I love Christmas!

Maybe my Christmas tradition is different because as a kid we used to have real trees - enormous Christmas trees, as Dad worked for an office plant design company, and he'd get a tree as a Christmas present. These trees were usually put outside offices in London - so they were pretty big! (One year our tree took up half the lounge lol! If only I could find the photos....) Our tree would usually go in about a week before Christmas (around the 16th to 18th sticks in my mind) so that the tree looked healthy on Christmas Day. It was the old type too, that dropped the needles. Dad would also decorate the inside of the house so that it looked Santa's grotto. You couldn't see the ceiling. Even now, I put a lot of decorations up. So when I decorate my house I decorate it big style. :) (Hence I don't really want it up since November!)

Since moving into this house, I can't have a real tree because even the smallest one would be too big really, and the only place for the tree is in front of the radiator. However, even though I now have a fake slimline tree, I do not feel the need to put it up until about a week before Christmas. Now the boys are bigger, they want to help me with the decorations too, but I still try to do it around the 16th December.

Last year, tree up! 

My son has his birthday on the 4th of December. This is another factor why Christmas doesn't creep into our house early, I like to let him have his birthday. He wants his cards up and on show like the rest of the family - let's face it!

I understand the outside lights going up early. And taking decorations down early to suit around work etc. I'm not religious, but to me Christmas is about traditions and family time, and I feel like it's been forgotten that there are 12 days of Christmas, which starts on the 25th December.

To me it feels like Christmas is losing its punch, its traditional elements when we've been 'celebrating' since November. I suppose it doesn't really matter when the decorations go up, if it suits some to have them up early, but I have known people to put the tree and decorations up really early, then rip them down Boxing Day because they're 'sick of the sight' of them. My mind boggles at that. Put them up a bit later, and have them up over the "Christmas period."

What are you Christmas traditions? Do you love Christmas, or hate it? Do you put your decorations up 1st December or do you wait a bit closer to the big day?