Christmas Eve, of course. Christmas doesn't start til then - well, not in our house, anyway and it stays up until 6th January, which is Twelfth Night. If you leave it up later than that, or take it down before, it's traditionally bad luck.
We always put ours up in the first week of December and take it down in the first week in January. My mum's house looks like a grotto for the whole of December and it's brilliant! :o)
The second weekend in December - we all go out into the New Forest to a little Christmas tree farm and spend hours choosing the perfect tree with my in laws and nephews. Then we get home have hot chocolate and marshmallows and then put the tree up.
We take it down on the 6th Jan and save it in the garden until misdummers day and burn it to 'release the spirit of Christmas'....which is actually just a good excuse for toasting marshmallows!
ethanryan - Just put it up on the 1st, why not! It looks really cosy and special when the tree goes up, anyway, it's 2 - 1 so your husband is in the minority lol! Probably put mine up then too!
We have 3 little daughters. Although our twins are far too young to know about Christmas, our 2 and a half year old is already getting excited about having a tree. So now we have the perfect excuse to be early. But if i'm honest, I can't wait too. Cheers to the early tree people.
We usually put ours up mid December, depends what our plans are really, but this year is our first year in our own house so I am really excited and we are going to have a real tree in stead of our normal fakey one :-)
We usually have my neice so she gets to put the star on the top (yep we have a star even though I wanted a fairy), she's nearly 7 though and this time next year we'll have a little one of our own so I think it might be one of the last times we'll be able to do it with her as next year I imagine she'll probably be too big (she has the attitude of a 13 year old already) and decorating the tree will probably be for "babies" by then. I don't mind, I will put the star on the top myself! :-)
Some of the houses round by us already have their Crimbo decs an lights up, I saw one today and hubby saw two last week.
Mr Noir's birthday falls on December 5th, and his mom would always have her house fully decorated in time for his birthday when he lived with her, ergo, we have to have all our deccies up by then. I'd much prefer to leave it till mid-december.
1st of Dec for me it takes me ages to put up my lights and tree so I want them to be up for a long time before I have to take them down again and it put you in a good mood