Today I saw...

[JoM]

...a house decorated for Christmas, down by the gym
Tree in the window, lights, one of those Santas hanging below an upstairs window...

It's November 15th fercryin'outloud!!!!

[debih]

Mad people - far too early.

I actually think 1st December is far too early too but I know lots of people put theirs up then. They would start to drive me mad and I would be sick of them by the time Xmas actually came around. Ours go up anywhere between 12th and 18th December - the later the better for me.

The earliest I have seen decorations up was last year when we went to the Lake District for the October half term. We drove past a house that had all their decorations up inside (from what we could see from the outside anyway). Mick actually turned around and drove back as we didn't really believe it. We drove past this year to see if they were up but sadly not.

The latest I have seen anyone keep them up (or maybe they were up extra early, or never got taken down) was quite a few years ago when I went out to see a landlord to talk about their houses that they wanted to rent out. Lovely posh house and they took me through to the conservatory and there was their Christmas tree in all its glory, lights on and everything. It was mid April.

[JoM]

We used to put ours up on the Saturday nearest to Dec 1st when the boys were small but I can't be bothered now. Last year I put a tree, lights and some cheap decorations in the downstairs living room window because everyone in the close had their trees up and our house looked like the Scrooge family residence. It lasted two days and on the third I came home and found that Billy had knocked it over
We have a tree in the upstairs living room which I put up around the 15th last year, and it was down sometime between Christmas and New Year. And on the 23rd I redecorated the tree in the downstairs room - it'd been in the corner with just a string of lights on since Billy had knocked it over.

I think the latest I ever did the tree was at around 11pm on Christmas Eve, in the pre-kids days when I'd been rushed off my feet at work for the duration of December and had had to go out to three middle of the night alarm call outs that week too.

[Workingman]

Nope! Not looking. It's still November.

[tonicha]

Me neither

In fact, we don't really "do" Christmas

[debih]

Me neither

In fact, we don't really "do" Christmas

Could you not just pop some tinsel round Grumpy's neck and bung a star on top of his head.

[meriad]

Pimlico Plumbers by Vauxhall have their full display up and lit up - happened the weekend the clocks went back

It's a lovely bright and cheery (if somewhat tacky ) display that generally does put a smile on my face, but end October???? far far far too early

[Kaz]

I put ours up either two or three Saturdays before Christmas, depending on what day of the week the 25th falls on

I used to hate Christmasses working in retail - the decs went up in mid-October, the endless Xmas-Songs-on-a-Loop began and by the end of November you were ready to throttle Noddy Holder and Cliff Richard

[meriad]

When we were still living in Germany our tree never went up until the morning of the 24th / sometimes a day or so before. The pre-christmas day / weeks were for the advent stuff, ie wreath with 4 candles, christmassy decorations etc, but the actual tree was kept for actual Christmas (we celebrate the 24th). And it would come down the afternoon / evening of 6th January, which is 3 Kings (Epiphany) and usually a holiday.

My sister (who is married to a forester so they always have the most amazingly perfectly shaped tree) really had to convince him to break a bit with old family traditions so their tree now goes up about a week before. And about 10 years ago or she so convinced him to use electric lights as well; up until then he insisted they use proper candles only He now quite sheepishly admits to quite liking the electric lights