Nana, I had to laugh when you said you were 'chomping at the bit to decorate', me too! I wait until AFTER Thk'gv, even though it's not easy, especially this year. I'm not having Thk'gv at my house, so more time. LOL

I DO have all my boxes in order to ready, set, go! ;o)

I wait until after Thanksgiving also b/c I will have Thanksgiving dinner in our home. I have all my fall decor out also. I am thinking about how I will decorate this year. I think I may go with less decor. I have a lot of beautiful greenery and a lovely santa collection. My greenery seems to bring out so much dust!

I have to start early-mid November to get it all up. With my oldest 2 now in high-school and playing varsity sports, the third in middle school playing 2 sports and working....I don't have a block of time that I can devote to just decorating! I'm just not willing to give up my decorating....so the only solution is to start early! :)

Alex

After Thanksgiving - the majority of it goes up about 2 weeks before Christmas and stays up through Little Christmas.

However, I finished my Christmas cards yesterday. I design my own, so that kind of calms any must decorate now impulses pretty well. :-)

No matter what, after Tgiving...I don't like to see Christmas before Turkey Day..
I can see putting the outside lights up etc but not lighting them. It gets mighty cold here, so better to do it while your hands can still move..

I've already started... It's the first year I have done it though. No one at our house except myself,dh and dd. I mainly wanted to get the garland put together for the fireplace mantel and couldn't seem to make it work on the floor so up it went. I like the idea of doing it in a slow and easy pace instead of trying to rush it all into one or two days of decorating. Tree hopefully the weekend after Thanksgiving. I'm just looking forward to seeing everyone's pictures.

I have always waited until the weekend after Thanksgiving, but for some reason it is hard this year. Thanksgiving being so late isn't helping either.

Will probably do the outside after I finish putting down more mulch. Don't even remember what I have for outside as some years I put very little and gave some stuff away.

I start The Day After Thanksgiving! Well, it keeps me out of the stores!

I usually do it day after Thanksgiving too. Everything Fall, gets 'wisked' away. That Fri, we always go and chop down the 'live' tree...however since I've moved here, the past two yrs, the live tree goes on the porch. Then I start w/the other indoor trees. This yr, for the first time, b/c I'm doing both holidays, and a Family Christmas party, the wk after TGiving, I started a little early w/DR tree. The tree lights will not go on until day AFTER Tgiving. I do have my window lights on in the windows..I like to do that for TGiving too.
jane

Yes, some people leave those candles up . I think they look nice for Tgiving, sort of a grand opening!

Gail, I'm with Bright here!
I have ALWAYS started the day after Thanksgiving (and I'm 61 yrs old). But after it taking me two full weeks to do the decorating last year, and seemingly so little time to enjoy it, as I always had stuff packed away the week of New Year's, I wanted it to last longer this year. I decided to start this week, and plan to leave it up till mid January (hopefully). If I could get all the decorating done in a weekend, like in the past, that would be great. But I can't, and the season is short enough without me losing two weeks working on decorating. If I was having Thanksgiving here at my house, then I'd still wait like past years. But since we are going to one of the kids, I don't mind being in the middle of Xmas boxes right now. I decorated for Fall the very first day of it, and have had the brown 'n orange up plenty long enough for me. LOL. Plus we don't have Seasons here in Phx, and in fact its record breaking 88 this week, so the only way to get into the spirit of the holidays is to make it happen inside.

hugs, Karen

I broke my own rule this year and put my master bedroom tree up this week. But all the rest will wait until after we ate the turkey next week. When we'll get home that night I'll be starting with my Christmas decorating, I look forward to it all year and as always my family thinks I'm nuts...LOL

December 1 was always the day to start putting things out for me. I also leave everything with a definite "Christmas look" up until the 31st. The garlands, wreaths, and winter decor stay up until February.

This year I'll probably start the weekend after Thanksgiving, since it will practically BE December anyway. I also have a lot of time on my hands right now, so I can take full advantage of that luxury.

I'm chomping at the bit, too, but we're almost there!

I just can't usher "fall" out so quickly. I feel like Thanksgiving "deserves" to not be rushed away. So I wait until a week after Thanksgiving (this year the 6th/7th of Dec.). I'll put away the fall stuff on the 6th, and start with the Christmas stuff then too. That will give me three weeks to enjoy it (it only takes me a weekend to decorate), and then it will come down on the 28th or so.

I like Christmas, but it's not my favorite holiday by any means, and doing more would just make it stressful and "work" for me with all the baking, shopping, wrapping, planning, etc. So I keep the decorations simple, and make sure it's all put away by January 1st, so I can start the new year with a clean, minimally decorated house that lets me start fresh for another season.

When I can't wait any longer! Thanksgiving is in October so I don't have that to worry about. I've been putting out little bits and pieces over the past couple of weeks. The tree and the bulk of our decorations will go up Dec 1st as it's the first activity in our advent calendar.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Blog

Ah, the Canadians have a good thing going there. If we had Thanksgiving in October, I'd probably be decorating for Christmas by now.

The one thing we do sometimes is to have outside lights ready to turn on after dinner on Thanksgiving.

My decorating takes a long time too, not nearly as long as some of you, but it seems long to an (ahem) older person. I'm in no hurry to take things down, but it seems like in this part of the country, people are in a hurry to pack Christmas away. I feel self conscious, but often don't get everything put away until the second week in January. I purposely keep the tree in the den up till everything is down. At night we secretly enjoy the lights some years until February. I wish people would stretch the season the other way. Winter is long and boring, I want to let the Christmas lights shine.

I had never thought about leaving some of the decorations up until into Feb, the winter looking things-- and just putting away the real Xmas-y ones in Jan. I like that idea and plan to do it this year!!

I too wish the season lasted longer, and would even love to see Thanksgiving start right after Halloween. I really enjoy Thanksgiving-Fall, and over the years I've watched it get pushed aside for Christmas, thanks mostly to commercialzation. Seems we almost jump from July to Dec in the stores now.
(and I really feel a bit odd pulling out my Xmas stuff now in fact. LOL. So we'll see how I do this coming week at decorating for Xmas early this year.)

hugs, Karen

Jenangelcat, nice to see a fellow Canadian on this forum! When I read about the others trying to be sure Thanksgiving is not rushed into Christmas, I am doubly glad we celebrate ours in October. I have started Cmas decorating a bit early this year as we are having a wine-tasting gathering for approx 20 people at our house on Nov. 29th. DH is the one who convinced me over the years that Cmas decorations should NOT be put away on Jan.2nd but rather left up till mid to late Jan when we have time to sit and enjoy them - thus Cmas decor is up just about 2 months at our house. (We love having guests over for a "Christmas themed" dinner in mid January, they are surprised!) And after I take that down, I go with a winter theme until Easter/Spring.

DD

I usualy wait for the inside stuff until after Thanksgiving,but this year we will be gone for Thanksgiving so I may start a little early.Ouside stuff I try to getup any time after 1st of November(Whenever hubby isn't hunting pheasants or deer,so he can help me).

In the past the Friday after Thanksgiving was always my transition day - fall stuff taken down and packed away and Christmas boxes brought down and then decorating in earnst began on Saturday with the focus being on the train platforms. Since train platforms are not done anymore I started experimenting with a more all over Christmas, winter wonderland look. Friday is still my main transistion day but some Christmas gets snuck in before then. This year was the first time I actually did some trees ahead of time but I have to blame this forum and another dedicated Christmas forum for that - lol.....

Lynne

Hi jenanglecat and dining delight, I'm also Canadian too.I'm really getting into the Christmas decorating , with our Thanksgiving being in October, everyone here on my street has gone Christmas crazy already, I usually start Dec. 1 I think that we have no snow yet, thats why everyone has done it so early. I'll post my pictures next week.