
My husband calls me the Grinch for not wanting our Christmas tree up yet. But this is unjustified as I love, love, LOVE Christmas. I just want Christmas, to feel like Christmas… when it’s actually Christmas.
Nowadays, it seems no sooner have the pumpkins and skeleton masks been whipped off the store shelves; Christmas crackers and family-size buckets of Celebrations swiftly replace them. Seriously, an unscheduled trip to the shops last month saw me walking amongst the glittering aisles, listening to Frosty the Snowman, feeling like I’d entered some sinister parallel universe.
Yep, in my opinion, we’re starting to lose the magic of the silly-season because it’s all starting too bloody early. And to those who put the tree up in November – you’re killing Christmas!
It’s not that I don’t want to decorate the tree with the kids and rearrange it as soon as they’re in bed, because I do. After all, who doesn’t swoon at pretty fairy-lights? It’s just that I can’t help thinking that having the tree up ridiculously early kind of dilutes all the magic and the anticipated ceremony of it all: a glass of wine in one hand, mince pie in the other and Fairytale of New York on repeat.
As a Brit kid back in the day, our tinsel-laden tree went up a week before Christmas and not a second before. If it was just down to me – that’s how I would run the show now. The entire Christmas period was condensed into two weeks and because of that, felt just so… Christmassy! Plus we had a real tree back then which would otherwise have been dead by Christmas Eve.
So yet again hubs and I find ourselves (north) poles apart on this pressing issue of when to put up the tree and set-up our expanding ‘Christmas village’ display (his pride and joy). He declares we’re already way behind schedule but I’m pushing for 15 December. We’re not really religious but to set our squabbling aside (not very Christmassy), I start to think about some other meaningful ways of preserving the spirit of Christmas for us and our boys.
According to science, putting up your Christmas decorations early makes you happier.
When we lived in Newcastle, NSW, we always bought a gift for Kmart’s Wishing Tree. But now that we’re in the UK, I look for other ideas. So we sign-up for a similar charity initiative, where we wrap and fill a box with small gifts for a child who would otherwise go without any presents.
It’s a little gesture but it seems a good opportunity for the boys to learn about kids less fortunate. They help pick out the pressies and hand-make cards to go inside (in fact, my youngest spends ages drawing a beautiful festive airport on his). We go to the grocery store and donate Christmas foods to their food bank.
I know these are small tokens which many of us do. But now the boys are getting a bit older, I hope they’ll better understand the meaning behind getting involved.
Top Comments
I love putting up the tree, but rarely have time before 18th or 19th of December, of course if I buy a freshly cut tree, this means it isn't dead by Christmas., but the real reason is I want to enjoy taking time to put on the decorations collected over the years and reminisce over them and this is when I have got through the busiest end of year celebrations and can enjoy doing it instead of seeing it just as another job to do before Christmas.
Who actually even cares when anyone else puts their Christmas tree 🎄 up? To quote my 17 yr old...”you do you, boo” and stop worrying about the Jones’s or anyone else. Put the damn thing up whenever you feel like it! Growing up our tradition was to put it up 12 days before Christmas and take it down 12 days after. To be totally honest this sat well with me as I hate the mess of a Christmas tree. All the bloody tinsel, glitter & little green bits that end up everywhere drive me crazy! I carried this tradition on when my children were small but at almost 18 & 23, these days we have the teeniest, tiniest tree (often we are overseas for Christmas so it needs to fit in a suitcase) and guess what!?! It still looks beautifully fabulous & magical every Christmas morn with all the presents underneath it :)