It seems to me that more and more people are getting their Christmas trees right after Thanksgiving. This just seems wrong to me. When I was growing up, we never had a tree until about the 17th or 18th of December. If we were having Christmas at my grandmother’s house, we wouldn’t put one up for her until we got there, usually the the 23d or 24th. I have my great-grandfather’s diaries from around 1915, and he usually got his around the 23d of December.
I still don’t have a tree. I tend to get one a little earlier than when I was growing up, but only because people who come to visit seem so shocked when I don’t get one early. It’s easier just to get one a little earlier than I’d like than to keep explaining myself.
When do you get yours, and is it earlier than when you were a kid?
When I was a kid, we usually got ours sometime in the week before Christmas, but it didn’t get taken down until January 6th(the whole epiphany thing). Everyone seems to think that was late to get one.
Now, well, I admit, I have never had a tree of my own. IT seems sort of useless since I live alone, travel a lot, and go to my parents for christmas. But, mom, since purchasing a fake tree, seems to put it up earlier each year. I think she put it up right after Thanksgiving this year, although she says it’s not completely decorated yet.
Thanksgiving is just too early to put up a tree. It’s like christmas decorations at the mall in October.
When I was living at home, we usually got one about the time school got out, about a week or so before Christmas. I think it’d be flat DANGEROUS to have a live tree up for the whole month. Talk about a fire hazard! Mom’s always been a bit paranoid about fire, so we always had very well-watered trees. I’m not sure if they get a tree now, but I think they have a fake one. I’m going to Grandma’s anyway, and I KNOW she’ll have one.
I keep going out of state every Christmas so I don’t get one for myself. Besides, my cat would rip it to bits. The cat is more important to me than a tree.
I think the “right” time is whenever it makes you happy to put a tree up.
I put ours up around the 15th or so, and take it down on Epiphany (Jan. 6). I suspect Mr. Del would put it up around Labor Day, if left to his own devices.
For me, Thanksgiving would be too early to put up a tree, but I imagine some people might like to do it then because you have that extra time off work, and putting up a tree is a big project, whether it’s going out and shopping for a real one, or dragging out the fake one and assembling it.
Growing up, we would put it up around the time that school ended, like whiterabbit mentioned. Now, since my adult siblings and I don’t usually get home until just before Christmas, we’ll put up my mom’s tree on Christmas Eve. This is sort of fun, we listen to Christmas records (yes, records! The christmas music from my childhood just wouldn’t sound the same without all those snaps and pops) and bicker about whose 4th grade paper mache ornament is the best.
We put ours up every year on December 1st. If it was JUST up to me, I’d probably put it up Christmas Eve. Then again, procrastination is my life, and I’m not big on Christmas.
The last 5 years or so, we have cut our tree ourselves. I would always prefer to do so about the week before Christmas, but lately, have been so disappointed in the selection that remains. And it gets worse every year. We are on the way out this afternoon, hoping to not be disappointed.
Along with being astounded at the folks who have to get their tree up over Thanksgiving weekend, I deplore the “Griswoldian” rush to lavishly decorate the outside of one’s home with megawattage enough to power a small country. All by the Friday after Thanksgiving!
Well it’s not really a live tree, is it? I don’t believe in killed trees, so every year for the past three years (I didn’t have trees before that after I left home) I buy a living xmas tree. After the holidays, I give the tree to whoever wants it. The first one is alive and well in a coworker’s back yard. The second person said the tree died. The third tree is on a cabinet in my box – er, cubicle – at work (no one would see it if it were at home) and will be given to a coworker later.
Global warming has been in the news recently. The United States are in favour of planting new forests, but the European countries oppose this because they don’t have the space to reforest. If I heard the reports right, then this issue was what caused a breakdown in the treaty talks.
How many families are there in the U.S.? A hundred million? What if every family bought a live tree instead of a killed one or an artificial one, and then had them planted after the holidays? (People without the space to plant them could donate them to an organization that will plant them.) And what if they did this every year? That’s 100,000,000 new trees every year, many of which would survive!
Live trees are definatly way cool. If I had my own tree that’s what I’d get, but I go to my parents for Christmas, and they like to get a big-ass tree cut fresh from the field. I actually tried to talk them into a live tree last year, but, no luck.
We usually get the tree about a week or two before Christmas, and take it down whenever someone gets around to it, usually a week or so after Christmas.
My mom once told me when she was growing up (in the 1950s) they wouldn’t get a tree until Christmas Eve day; they’d go to her uncle’s farm and cut one from the woods, take it home and decorate it that night.
This year I saw some places selling trees before Thanksgiving. I don’t understand why anyone would want a tree so damn early. That thing would be brown and crumbly by Christmas. You’d have to get another tree mid-December if you wanted it to look decent and not risk burning down your house.
I kind of look at it this way – those trees were specifically grown to be cut. It’s not like everybody goes out into a forest and cuts their own tree.
If I end up staying home for a Christmas I will probably buy a small artificial tree that can be moved to whatever room I am currently occupying so I can keep the cat off it.
And to use your term, which is more direct I admit, I still think having a cut tree in one’s living room for an entire month is kind of silly, and certainly a hazard. By Christmas you have a brownish tree that is dropping needles EVERYWHERE.
True. So the net gain is zero. If people bought living trees we would be A) Adding more C02 scrubbers to the environment; B) Adding habitat for many species of animals; and C) Adding forested areas for people to enjoy.
The tradition of bringing an evergreen into one’s home began as a symbol of life, even in the depths of winter. What better symbold than one that continues to live after the winter?
(Besides, if you donate your living tree to a tree-planting organization, it might be tax deductable.)
We’ve always put up our fake tree (I had bad allergies when I was little; now it’s just 'cause it’s convenient) on or around my mom’s birthday (Dec. 13) and take it down the weekend of/after Jan. 1.
The best time to get a tree would be the first week of the next year…it’d be cheaper, anyway.
When I was growing up, we alternated between real and artificial trees, and put the tree up a week or two before Christmas. My wife and kids insist on doing things earlier though. Also, samclem is right - the longer you wait to cut your own tree, the worse the selection. Our schedule:
Day after Thanksgiving: decorate the inside of the house;
First warmish day after Thanksgiving: put up outside lights;
First Saturday in December: slay and decorate tree;
New Years Day: take it all down.
A couple of posters have mentioned that they keep their trees up until Epiphany; I’d be interested in hearing how late others take their trees down. A friend of mine’s wife would keep their tree up until Easter, I think. He doesn’t even begin negotiating with her about it until February!
My wife and I always get our tree the 2nd weekend of Dec. and it comes down Jan 2. always cut a live tree and it stays fresh the whole time if we keep it well-watered.
Well, when I was a kid, we used to always put up our tree on 12/16, because that was my parents’ anniversary. But, alas, since they “Parted Company” a few years ago, I put my tree up Thanksgiving weekend, simply because I take the cheater’s way out and have found the wonderful world of synthetic pine! Besides, that is usually the only weekend I have four days off in a row in which to mess with it! BTW, I actually had help with the tree this year in the form of a husband! This is our first Christmas together, and we are still trying to find that blinking strand of lights!!!
Happy Holidays To All!!!
Sassy
Seriously, don’t get a tree. I know, I know, they have “special” tree farms just for Christmas trees but really… you are killing a tree to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ… it just seems very wrong to me…
Sigh
I have a fake tree that’s about 4 feet tall. I got it at the DI for about six dollars almost 10 years ago. It really looks crummy until I deck it out with all the wonderful ornaments I’ve collected over the years. Like my nephew’s hand print, my mom’s crocheted blue ball and … well, they don’t go together, really, but somehow, on that sad little Charlie Brown Christmas tree, they look better than any decorator tree in the world…
Oh, and I put mine up the day after Thanksgiving and take it down the day after New Year’s.
P.S. Johnny L.A. I KISS you! And you too, Gunslinger!
When I was a kid the tree and other decorations went up the third Sunday of Advent (cleaning and other preparations took place on the Saturday just before). Since my family was Catholic, this was easy for even a kid to keep track of: the day they first light the pink candle at church, it’s time to put up the tree! Woohoo! Decorations came down on the Epiphany.
Now that I am, aherm, “culturally Catholic” (I’ve turned humanist on them but still enjoy some of the traditions of my childhood), I still try to keep to that schedule. This year, since Advent is late, I relented and put up the tree yesterday, although it’s the second Sunday of Advent. It was for our older boy’s benefit; he’s seriously bummed out that there is no snow yet, and impatient for it to be Christmas. The tree makes waiting a little easier for him. The other decorations will go up little by little as I have the time and inclination. The whole mess will stay up until the Epiphany.
We’re also proud members of the Fake Tree Brigade.
I was just wondering if you thought it wrong to bake a ham or turkey? And, speaking of Jesus, isn’t he thought to have been “asleep in a manger on the “hay”!” How do you think Hay is made? They cut it and bail it! (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is ALIVE when it is cut!) Just a thought from the scary depths of my mind to yours!
This is why I’m not a vegetarian, which I was for a little while. I considered the idea of vegetarianism and came to the conclusion that “life” is life, whether it comes from an animal or a plant. We can put all the necessary chemicals together, but we can’t make a potato from them because we can’t give it “life”. So I decided that if it’s okay to kill a plant for food, then it must be okay to kill animals for food. (I know there are posters who will disagree with me.)
So why not kill a tree? It’s often necessary. For example, we build houses with them. A house is worth the death of a living organism, which is a tree. But I don’t like the idea of killing a tree just for decoration. Would you kill a cat just for its pelt? Kill a deer just so you can hang its head on your wall? I know some people, trophy hunters, do the latter. But I don’t think it’s right to hunt for trophies. Killing for food is okay. Killing to protect yourself; for example, from someone who is going to do you harm, or to keep ants out of your food, is okay. But stepping on a spider you happen to see in your garden is not. (Exception: Dangerous spiders such as black widows or brown recluse.)
For me, killing a tree, which will not be put to any practical use and will just be a decoration, is wrong. I came to this conclusion when I was a teen. Dad and I cut two small trees on my grandfather’s property. He lived in a forest. There were lots of trees. But later it occurred to me that these trees had been growing peacefully for a few years. We came and killed them. As I thought about it, I thought of all of the farm-raised trees that were growing peacefully, then cut down just so people could bring their carcasses into their homes. Am I being over-sensitive? Probably. But this is the decision I came to. Your mileage may vary.
