Well, I tried. But my kids are two and three and don’t really understand. We live in Minnesota so, although we’ve gotten lucky and its been warm, lights go up right after Halloween. And then the kids ask. And their faces light up. And they run to the window six times a night to look at the one little tree I’ve hung lights on. And they say, the way only toddlers can to their parents “Thank you, Mommy, for turning on the Christmas lights. I love you.”
But I general, I agree with the rant. Just cut those of us with little ones a little slack.
Maybe it’s not supposed to be specifically “July 4th” but just patriotic?
I agree with the putting up lights early while it’s warm, but no turning them on till after Thanksgiving!
I’m with Alice; I love Christmas and all that goes with it. Just wait, though, okay?
We do all that decorating (outside lights) and the tree the day after Thanksgiving. Just a family tradition.
As a sales rep for a jewelry company, I’ve seen Christmas decorations come earlier every year - but THIS year, they were putting out Christmas tablecloths on the tables in the aisles on frigging ** September 1 ** at one store. Sorry, folks, but when there are a lot of schools that haven’t even started the year yet, it’s too damned early to put out the Xmas shit.
The full garland/trees/lights stuff has been up at most of the accounts I handle for at least 2 weeks now. Ridiculous.
Amen to the OP. I was in a local Menard’s on November 12, and they already had cut Christmas trees on display. Logically, that leaves two possibilities.
People voluntarily buy trees on 11/12, in which case they are idiots who deserve to be left with bare branches and a pile of needles well before Christmas.
These are the trees that will still be on display weeks from now in December (AT THE NORMAL TIME TO BUY A TREE) when well-meaning customers show up and buy their family trees. Wonder if Menard’s will disclose that they were cut a month in the past?
Damn. I’ve been wanting to put my little tree up for a week now, because I’m leaving the country on December first. I’ve owned my own set of ornaments for about four years now and have never had a chance to put them on a tree because I’ve never been in the same city with them at Christmas time.
Maybe I’ll do it next week anyway, since we never have guests over to see. Oh, the shame. My mother didn’t raise me to celebrate Christmas before the middle of December.
“Ahh…is it June already? Time to get out the ol’ Christmas decorations! I mean, it’s only six months away! Right around the corner…”
Why don’t we just get rid of Thanksgiving or Halloween? It sure seems like we’re doing that. Christmas festivities are arriving earlier and earlier each year.
I remember as a kid in the 70’s we didn’t see any Christmas stuff until after Thanksgiving in the stores. The day after Thanksgiving was a nightmare (still is) but it was an acceptable rush toward Christmas.
We didn’t put up our tree until two weeks before Christmas and it was down on January 1.
A few years back I was astonished to see one of my neighbors had put up their tree and decorated it by HALLOWEEN! UGH!
There’s a tire business in a town not far from me where they’ve decided it would be cute to keep their Christmas lights up all year long and ON. It drives me batty!!! I refuse to ever buy anything from them because of this annoying little habit. Makes them look like complete morons. As the months go by, the lightbulbs go out leaving ratty little half lit strands and it looks terrible!
Wow, I was just going to start a thread about this exact same thing. I was flabbergasted when I was driving to town last night and saw six house with Christmas lights up and blazing. I couldn’t believe it!
As for buying Christmas trees this early, that just seems really stupid and dangerous to me. After six weeks of sitting on your living room floor, that thing is going to be dry and brittle. Those things will catch fire if you look at them cross-eyes, while holding a match in the next room.
Personally, at my house we don’t get the tree all the way up till the day before Christmas. We are all just too busy before that. That is why we have a fake tree. This way, when ever someone has time they can add a little more to the process of putting that thing up.
I wandered into a local chemist (local being Melbourne Australia, chemist being a drugstore) the other day to find the staff ignoring me waving prescriptions about while they decorated the tree. When I finally managed to get attention (not easy, I seem to be invisible to teenage girls now I am in my late 30s and these were teenage girls) I grumbled that I was immediately moving to the USA because “they at least have thanksgiving before starting with the Bing Crosby”
and I pop in here only to find it isn’t true. waaaaaaaaaaaaah
Please have mercy and explain this to somebody who is not in on the joke. I see it in all sorts of threads, and I kill myself laughing whenever I see it. I would love to hear somebody’s explanation of it
When I was a kid, I came across an old calandar that said 6 January is the day for taking down the tree. I insisted that my parents observe this and they’ve been doing this ever since when they put up a tree. Why 6 January? 25 December + 12 = 6 January = 12 Days of Christmas.
So…is that what happened to the Kwanzaa Iguana and the Ramadan Gorilla too?
When my father was growing up, his family (and generally the rest of the 1950’s world) were observing the rule of “day after Thanksgiving, Christmas lights go up”. He almost got smacked with a switch for pestering my grandparents to put up the tree too early…no lie.
