Thanksgiving is over, and December is officially under way. Many of us are now in the process of decorating for Christmas/the holiday season. Being solidly into December also signifies the end of the annual debate about when it’s time to go all out for Christmas. At this point, we’re all in it together, and it’s no longer controversial to “deck them halls and all that stuff”.
Over the last decade or so, things have been ramping up for an unofficial battle between Halloween ending vs. Christmas beginning. The sentiment on one side is that once spooky season is over, we go straight to Christmas season, while the other side thinks that it’s perfectly normal to hold the holiday-lights-horses until Thanksgiving is over. Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt is firmly in the first camp in which Christmas decorations, lights, and music go up on November 1. In fact, she even has an agreement with her husband, Chris Pratt, that as soon as the clock strikes midnight on October 31, they are locked in on the season.
Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt had an agreement with Chris Pratt before she married him. Katherine told Fox News Digital she agreed with the Marvel star that if they got married, the holiday season in their home would begin Nov. 1. When asked if she would put her Christmas lights up right after Halloween, Katherine said, “Yes, it was an agreement that my husband and I had prior to getting married. Christmas lights and Christmas music start Nov. 1.
“And my daughter Eloise recently said to me, ‘Mommy, it goes Halloween and then right into Christmas, right?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ That’s my child right there. She gets it. So, we’re aligned.”
Katherine, who recently released her newest children’s book, “Kat and Brandy,” explained that she loves Thanksgiving, but you can celebrate that holiday “in the presence of Christmas lights.”
There are many parts of the holidays Katherine loves, but being able to see it through her children’s eyes has been special.
“The holiday season, like Nov. 1, is my time. It’s like my time of the year, it’s my time
to thaw from my icicle that I’ve been living in and to really emerge as a Christmas queen.“We’re just a day or two into it, and every tradition that we do — from putting up our Christmas lights on Nov. 1 to blasting Christmas music to gathering all together as a family, which I’m really grateful and proud that our family makes a priority every single holiday season,” Katherine told Fox News Digital. “Also, just being able to now watch the holidays and see the holidays through children’s eyes is also so special. So, I love all the traditions of the holidays, the decorations being a big part of it.”
It’s not surprising at all, but I guess we can count on Katherine to be on #TeamMariah, aka November first or bust! I totally understand the sentiment of watching the holidays through a child’s eye. I find the creeping Thanksgiving erasure to be somewhat fascinating, particularly because a lot of people that jump right into Christmas decorations tend to be fairly religious, and I always thought Thanksgiving was about giving thanks to a higher power. Regardless, for me, immediately changing the decorations over from Halloween/Fall before Thanksgiving feels like we’re rushing the seasons and end-of-year too much. I don’t appreciate the Thanksgiving-decoration erasure because I like having fall decorations up! I insist on having them until Black Friday is over.
Photo note by CB: This is a stock photo because Katherine Schwarzenegger hasn’t posted any holiday photos to Instagram yet despite being really into Christmas
photos credit: mpi099/MediaPunch/INSTARimages, Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, Cameron Stewart on Unsplash
In my home, Halloween lights get turned off on 10/31, Christmas lights, music and decor get turned on 11/1.
Christmas music, decor, lights make my heart happy and I am going to find happiness every which way I can.
They are my glimmers, and give me a much needed break from the hellscape that is life out there with the orange clown and his circus.
I think you should start decorating whenever it makes you happy. I agree, we all need to fill out joy buckets these days.
That said, I’m a little tired of seeing mansions decorated for the holidays. Showing off what you hired someone to create for you just doesn’t seem to fit the meaning behind the season – no matter what you celebrate.
Oh no, no mansion here and no decorators, it’s just the two of us empty nesters, trying to squeeze out every drop of happiness anywhere we can, we are more the “throw everything at the walls and tree and see what sticks” style of decorating haha.
AFTER Thanksgiving. Case closed.
Yup. I don’t get make Christmas a 2 month event, and skipping a holiday.
I mean, I get it – I’m actually the same way. The Sat/Sun after Thanksgiving, we put Christmas stuff up.
But this is a very American style of thinking, right? In other countries, at least the ones I’ve been to in Europe and Asia, no Thanksgiving means Christmas lights come out and carols start playing very early Nov (if not fully Nov. 1, and sometimes even in October).
Agree with Alicky. I just put up my Christmas tree because I wait until Thanksgiving is OVER. One reason is I love my Autumn decor the other is I like to extend my lights and tree through the entire holidays until January 1st. On instagram you see these influencers yank everything down on December 26th (because they’re tired of it by then) and nothing seems more depressing to me.
I usually do after Thanksgiving but this year I did my Xmas decorations the Monday before Thanksgiving because it came so late this year. My whole thing is that if I’m gonna go through all the trouble of decorating, I want to be able to enjoy it for at least a month. We’ll probably take the tree down right after NYD but leave our faux pine garlands with lights for the rest of the winter as they add warmth but aren’t particularly Xmas-y.
I agree with you about Fall décor erasure, Rosie and your comment reminded me of this McSweeney’s classic: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative-gourd-season-motherfuckers
Week before Thanksgiving my tree goes up. Outside lights and decorations day after thanksgiving.
My dear departed dad only let us put up Xmas tree on Dec 12. I wonder if there’s still that group of people?
I start Dec 1 leisurely and get things up in a week. I def couldnt listen to Xmas music for 2 months!
And then when do people take down? I enjoy it through Jan 1
Hi!! Yes, I’m here! I’m “that group of people”! My tree is down before noon on the 26th.
My birthday is in early December. When I was younger, my parents were careful to separate my birthday and Christmas so our decorations used to go up the 2nd week of December. I’ve always taken mine down on January 2. To me, New Year’s is part of the Christmas season and I have family over on New Year’s Day.
I’m at the end of November so I don’t do anything for Christmas until after that. My tree comes down before New Year’s usually.
We have an early December birthday in our house, so we don’t decorate until mid-December. Theoretically it all comes down right after New Year’s Day, but in practice it sometimes gets pushed to the following week.
As I said below, we decorate every room, including the bathrooms, with themed trees and nativities throughout the house. We start decorating December 1. But the big, real tree isn’t bought until a week before Christmas and we have a tree trimming party to decorate it. Our guests get to enjoy our Christmas wonderland throughout the house while snacking on Christmas cookies and sipping champagne punch or mulled cider and decorating our giant tree with decorations we have collected from all over the world. This way, the tree is still fresh & not dried out through New Year. Our family get-together is always around January 6, the feast of the Epiphany and 4 family birthdays. The trees stay up until then. After that, the gradual packing up & swapping out for winter decorations (snow flakes, snow people) begins. MLK weekend is for putting everything back up in the attic for another year.
I was raised Catholic, so decorations are up through the 12 days of Christmas (ending on Twelfth Night, Jan. 5) and come down on the Feast of the Epiphany/Wise Kings Day – Jan. 6th. I was raised that anytime before that is bad luck!
(Technically, any other day is bad luck, and they not only need to stay up until the 6th, they need to come down that very day – but given the 6th is usually an inconvenient weekday, we will leave stuff up until we have time to un-decorate, either doing a little each day or all at once on the following weekend).
I remember the first covid Christmas and we kept our tree up well past Christmas bc honestly the lights felt cheery. So now I’m like yeah, start putting lights up whenever. November 1st is a little too much. I need a breath bw spooky season and Christmas season. But I’d say getting started on decorations after the 1st week of November around mid November works. I don’t care about the thanksgiving erasure bc I don’t actually care about it that much as a holiday. Don’t get me started on the fact that the elementary schools near me still teach the whole Pilgrim Indian thanksgiving thing. And giving thanks and having gratitude can be a daily mantra. I do like the fall decor but I kind of do that along with the spooky season.
November 1, black & orange Halloween cats, bats, ghosts & witches come down; orange & brown scarecrows, turkeys, & autumn leaves go up. Christmas is December 1 through January 6 and there’s a tree & nativity in every room
So I follow Deena Lang on IG (@itsdeenalang, she’s awesome!) and she shared last year that influencers have to put up their decorations right after Halloween, so that the influenced have time to shop for the items. She showed herself putting up her decorations, for her paid ads… and then showed herself taking it down.
In my house the Christmas tree goes up as close to Christmas as possible and comes down the day after. Now having said that, my husband disagrees and since he works away from home I do allow him to put up the tree whenever he wants, which will be this weekend because he’s going to be home but the tree will be down before noon on the 26th.
Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday. I love spending time with my family, the good food and the coziness of it all. It’s like Christmas without the stress and bankruptcy. I give that holiday the respect she deserves.
I don’t really care if people put their Christmas decorations up early – if it brings you joy and you’re not hurting anyone, who cares – go for it. What bothers me is the Christmas ads that started on Halloween night – I hate the corporate greed.
Thanksgiving can be part of your holiday season, nothing wrong with that. I say start when you feel like it. Nights are dark in Nov & the lights are cheery. Not sure why people need to be rigid about it.
The holiday weekend after Thanksgiving is when we get the tree and bring down the Christmas boxes for decorating. No holiday creep!
My sister’s bday is today, so the tree always went up right after that. My dad’s bday is first week of January, so the tree was gone then. Now I just decorate whenever since it’s just me. This year it was Black Friday bc I knew I wouldn’t have the energy after chemo yesterday. I have a Charlie Brown tree and a few other Peanuts Christmas items on the mantle and that’s it. This year I put lit garland and some window clings on the glass storm door just for some extra cheer.
Sorry, Christmas belongs in December, not with veterans and Remembrance Day. Nuh-uh.
Does anyone else just not really decorate? I grew up in a mixed family — I was raised Catholic according to my mom’s wishes, but my dad’s half Jewish and my half-brothers and their families are fully Jewish, so we always did both Hannukah and Christmas — and no one wanted to bother switching between decor for each holiday (don’t know why the idea of just general winter-themed decor never occurred to anyone, lol). We also never bothered with the whole Santa thing, which is apparently controversial? People always act like I missed out on something major, but my dad was just adamant that he wasn’t going to lie to his kid.
But I wouldn’t want anyone to get the idea that our holidays are joyless or whatever. It largely revolves around food for my family, and as most of us are musically inclined, we all get into that aspect as well. I think my favorite tradition is our super corny post-Thanksgiving dinner Christmas singalong (with “Christmastime for the Jews” from SNL included, and an annual reminder that Jews are actually responsible for some of the best Christmas music, of course).
My birthday is around American Thanksgiving (I’m Canadian) so we usually decorate around my birthday. We do put up our outside lights in early November but that’s just because the weather will turn and no one wants to do that in the cold/snow/freezing rain, but we don’t turn them on until December 1st. Decor stays up until after New Years and the outdoor lights stay on for January to bring some light to such a cold, dark month. Most of my neighbours do the same now too as we are a neighbourhood with lots of walkers/winter bikers.
My kiddo has a birthday RIGHT before Christmas and they LOVE the decorations, so there is always a package or two under the tree in birthday wrap for them for a few days which they are okay with – we ask every year about it just to make sure.
Canadian here…I think a lot of people here try to wait until after Nov. 11 (Remembrance Day here), and then go all out.
Personally? Dec. 1 is the earliest I can do it. Call me a grinch, but Christmas isn’t my favourite time of year. There’s fun stuff for sure, but overall I could do without all the work and commercialism. I’m not religious, so it’s really just a holiday for me.
This actually has been majorly on my mind! :O I once put up my Christmas decorations early, and my 3 teenagers were adamant that from then on I should wait til after Thanksgiving. I moved to the South, and people have outside lights up the day Nov. 1st! I also seem to get suddenly busy after Thanksgiving AND the weather turns colder, so screw waiting from now on!
Not a bad idea to discuss/negotiate holiday decorating before marriage. Lots of people have solid family traditions and feel strongly about it!