Does Christmas decorations suddenly appearing on store shelves the day after Halloween rile you up? Or do you like the red and green lights around town on the first of November? The media goes crazy over the first sightings of Christmas in November, so when is the best time to set up Christmas decor? The timing of decorations can be seen as a chaotic topic of discussion because people can be very opinionated on when the “right” time to set up Christmas trees is. Most people put up their Christmas decorations after Thanksgiving, as most want to enjoy fall decorations to the fullest, or simply because they want to celebrate Thanksgiving. But, there are a lot of people who will put up decorations before Thanksgiving since they want to enjoy Christmas for longer or want to experience that holiday spirit when it starts to get chilly.
South students were asked whether they celebrated Thanksgiving or not, and if they decorated for Christmas before or after Thanksgiving. Out of the 81 responses 7.4% say that they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. This clearly gives people a reason to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving. Why would they wait to decorate before a holiday they don’t even celebrate? In regards to decorating for Christmas, 58% of the respondents said they decorate after Thanksgiving, while the other 42% decorate before.
Based on the results of the survey, there are many contributing factors as to why a family would decorate their house before or after Thanksgiving. One obvious reason that people would decorate after is simply because it comes before Christmas. Some families are very passionate about Thanksgiving while others don’t really care about the holiday or don’t even celebrate it at all. The majority of the students who said they decorated after Thanksgiving explain that Thanksgiving is a holiday that deserves just as much attention as any other big holiday such as Christmas. Few students claim that the Christmas tree is out of place when eating dinner with family.
On the other hand, students who said that they decorate their houses before Thanksgiving have many different reasons. Weather was one of the reasons and it plays a huge role in this situation. Nobody wants to put up the lights around the roof in 20 degree weather, so they put it up as soon as it hits November. A lot of the respondents also said that they think it’s nice to have the tree up and the colorful lights around the house when eating with family.
There’s clearly lots of discourse about the timing of Christmas decorating seeing that there’s a variety of reasons for why people put together their winter wonderland at different times. Since it’s all up to personal preference, the media will never come to an agreement for a certain time to accessorize for the winter holiday.
