When do you start decorating for Christmas?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mrsdizzyd
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
We put the tree up on Gaudete Sunday. But we just put the lights and some purple bows on it.

The tree gets fully decorated for Christmas on Christmas eve.
 
I like to devote later and keep the decorations up latter (preferably till March!!!)
 
I turn on the lights after Remembrance Day, November 11th and work my way up through to Christmas, and I keep everything up until after the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, the end of the Christmas season.

I’m not a season purist, and have no issue combining secular and liturgical custom.
 
Last edited:
🤨

You’d think the Vatican would choose a nicer fuller tree than that! Still, YAY Christmas tree! 🌲

My parish is putting its tree up this week as well in preparation for a lighting ceremony, etc Saturday night after Vigil mass.
 
We used to decorate the church for Christmas after Mass on the last Sunday of Advent. A lot of people would stay, we’d sometimes bring in pizza and things got done in a couple of hours. Then someone got involved who does things so far in advance that she’ll set up for a Sunday baptism on Monday, if not right after Mass the previous Sunday. So things go up early because “I don’t want to be at that at the last minute.” That means that there was already a lit Christmas tree in the hall when I went to Mass last Saturday.
 
The problem with this is that if you wait until Christmas Eve to do all the big decorating, all of the Adventian prayer and repentance will be wiped out!

The stress of trying to do it all in one short evening (in many cases, after working at a job all day Christmas Eve, and possibly being scheduled to work on Christmas Day), trying to find a tree lot that still has any trees left, and it’s probably snowing, so the tree will be wet and have to sit in the garage with fans flowing on it, dragging all the boxes of decorations from the attic or basement or storage closet (or storage locker several miles away from your house), getting all those decorations up, probably while children and teenagers are running around and of COURSE, you faithfully wrapped all your gifts throughout the month of December, right?! (or are you running out to Walgreens on Christmas Eve to finally do your gift buying?!)–and fixing some kind of a Christmas Eve meal, or calling out for pizza–oh, how festive and ttraditional–Pizza!! Joanna Gaines would faint!–and on top of all that, heading off to church for an extra-long Mass–and then coming home and reading Luke 2, or Night Before Christmas, or watching a traditional Christmas movie–and then finally, around 5 A.M. on December 25, falling into bed, only to be awakened by the kids at 5 :15 a.m. and THEN you have to make the large Christmas Day dinner for the family, PLUS open all the presents (unless you have opened them all the night before after church, and somehow, you managed to clean up all that wrapping paper!)–

–Well, if that kind of stress doesn’t lead you to sin and swearing–you are a saint!

Nope, we decorate gradually throughout the month of December, whenever we have a free evening, which isn’t very often. My husband put lights out two days before the Big Snow hit us the Sunday after Thanksgiving–took us four hours to shovel our driveway yesterday (day off for me).
 
My parents’ anniversary was in mid December, so we’d put it up around then. We used to get a real tree, so in order to not have it dry out we wouldn’t put it up until just a few weeks before.
 
Last year, the city of Rome had an incident with their tree. It actually died in transit, they put it up anyway.

It then became famous.

It was named “Spelacchio”. (Baldy)

Someone set up a twitter page with statements in Roman dialect from the tree.
 
Yeah, we’re too busy to decorate trees on Christmas Eve. We’re at Church.
 
I used to think that, then I read in the news today that the Christmas tree in St… Peter’s Square is having its lights switched on today, and the new crib blessed, so I don’t know any more.
 
I still don’t have my tree up, but it’s not a liturgical choice so much as a crazy week and being frozen by indecision since my husband suggested buying a fake tree.
 
Last edited:
I don’t have my tree up yet either. It’s been crazy around here. We should have snow this weekend, so hopefully we will get ours up then.

I do have my wreath on my door, my mantle decorated and my advent stuff up.
 
Last edited:
For somebody who loves advent as much as I do it’s strange that I decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving instead of waiting. I think my personality is such that I can’t enjoy the season until the work is done so I get it out of the way quickly. Hubby does the outside on whatever day the weather report claims will be the nicest during Thanksgiving week. They aren’t turned on until at least the day after Thanksgiving but we don’t wait much longer than that because why have them up if you aren’t gonna enjoy them.
 
Phemie said:
We used to decorate the church for Christmas after Mass on the last Sunday of Advent. A lot of people would stay, we’d sometimes bring in pizza and things got done in a couple of hours. Then someone got involved who does things so far in advance that she’ll set up for a Sunday baptism on Monday, if not right after Mass the previous Sunday. So things go up early because “I don’t want to be at that at the last minute.” That means that there was already a lit Christmas tree in the hall when I went to Mass last Saturday.
Click to expand...
That’s kind of sad. Perhaps I am just projecting my own experiences onto your situation, but this kind of person tends to push out other volunteers who are not able or willing to get there and do things early. So the whole thing becomes a one-woman show and people who used to be involved gradually drop out because there’s no point. It’s all already done by the time they show up.
 
Normally we decorate on the Friday/Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year we ended up putting the tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving…kids got antsy.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top