I like Thanksgiving more than Christmas, actually. Less hassle, more relaxed fun. Simple pleasures are the best, right? So no, we don't let Christmas pressures impose on our happy day.

The last line of the poem says it all:

Over the river, and through the wood,
To Grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose
As over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring, "Ting-a-ling-ding",
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood,
Trot fast, my dapple-gray!
Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound,
For this is Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barnyard gate,
We seem to go extremely slow,
It is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood,
Now Grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

Nope. The red and green boxes of Christmas stuff don't get pulled out until the Turkey is gone, but then they explode all over the house.

DH brings the tree down (yep, a purdy fake one) from the attic Thanksgiving night. I spend the day black friday decorating. I feel the same way you do about Thanksgiving and decorating. Christmas music started playing in the stores a few weeks ago and although I love Christmas, I'm so tired of all the RUSH. I feel like everything in general, and in my life as of late, is go, go, go all the time and I can't stand it. I need to wind down for once.

Never. But I'm with shee, the day after Thanksgiving is the official start of the season for me.

This year my husband and I have a canoe trip planned for Black Friday though. So it might be Saturday before I start the annual holipalooza.

Ann

A house across the street from me put up their tree this past weekend--I could see the lights in their living room window last night. Honestly, that seems a bit early to me, but maybe they are traveling over Thanksgiving weekend or something.

Me, I start on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but I don't have a ton of decorations. So I put out one thing a day until Christmas--helps the anticipation build slowly. And since I get a real tree, it doesn't go up until Christmas Eve, and comes down on Epiphany. My single brother and sister come over Christmas Eve and we decorate the tree and watch Christmas videos and eat chowder, which for some reason is my family's traditional Christmas Eve meal.

I normally don't put up decs until after Thanksgiving. But, this year the past couple of weekends the weather has been so beautiful it was a shame to not take advantage of the temperature in the 60's. Thanksgiving weekend is supposed to have a high in the 40's and raining.
We did put up our outside decorations, but will not turn them on until after Thanksgiving.

My daughter's birthday is on the 2nd, so we always waited until after her birthday to start with the Christmas decorations. We wanted to keep her birthday as separate from Christmas as possible.

Never before Thanksgiving! My DD has her tree up already though. She started last week, which is fine with me because then she has time to help me. She has a flare for hanging ornaments and I love my trees when she decorates them.

I wait until after my son's mid-Dec. birthday. Stuff stays up until Russian Christmas, not that we do all that much for it, but it's a nice end date. I'm so glad that we celebrate/decorate/go nuts later than most.

I always decorate after TG, except this year I'm tackling a few projects that I'm making on my own.

Since I'm not hosting TG this year, I'm going to work on my mantel and get it ready since it involves a lot of thinking. Then I'll tackle the tree probably this weekend.

I do have a couple of things up right now, ONLY because I had to sit and work on them and there was no place else to put them. lol.

This is what I did yesterday. Oh, I am clearing off tables and stuff for decorations which is a chore in itself!

We had a lovely fall, but I decided to make it easy on myself this year. I replaced the pumpkin and gourds in the front planter with winter greens last week. Since I live in MN, that particular task usually involves pouring a kettle of boiling water on the planter to thaw the soil enough to get the greens in! We had nasty freezing rain this weekend and today, so I'm glad I did.

I like to put the indoor decorations up on the Saturday before Christmas. My birthday is 1 January, so I want everything other than greens and snowmen packed away before that.

Yogacat, so you only have your indoor decorations up for two weeks? I don't think I'd even bother. That's why I like fall decorating ... it can stay up for 3 months. ;)

In the past I've done like Natal and only put up a few things about a week before Christmas. Especially after the kids left home. But this year I went all out with fall decorating so I will do the same with Christmas.

I'm not hosting Thanksgiving and I'll have a 4 day weekend during which the weather is supposed to be awful, so I'm going to do it up big time this year. I'm hosting a couple of informal events before Christmas so I want the place festive. And I always do Christmas dinner with lots of guests so I will have time to decorate this year.

But I always take it all down the day after Christmas! I like to be decoration free come January 1.

We were living in Denver in 98 when I experienced my first american thanksgiving holiday; in my neighborhood, everyone had their outdoor xmas lights installed before TDay and I did the same.

This year, I'm in Florida for Thanksgiving but I'm golfing that day and having my friend's country club serve me the turkey dinner, yesssssssssss.
I cooked a 22pound turkey for canadian thanksgiving on October 11 so
I'm good.

Canadians have 2 months between those holidays, you guys have a month only, I've always been floored by this !!

Christmas goes up the first weekend in December, and comes down in the kitchen and dining room the day after Christmas due to DD birthday on December 27th. Even though she is grown, I want the kitchen and dining room to reflect a family birthday celebration.The rest comes down around New Year's day. I love Thanksgiving, and at least I have been decorating earlier for that. pat

Christmas stuff goes up the week before Christmas, and comes down the week after New YearâÂÂs Day, at the earliest. I can do without most of it once New YearâÂÂs Day has passed, but I love having the tree with all the white lights on in the living room during the cold, gloomy month of January.

I love the fall decor, actually better than I like a lot of the Christmas stuff, so I am in no rush. Plus putting up the Christmas decorations reminds me that the horror of winter is arriving.

I have a canadian friend that says the same thing Mitch! But I love having Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years so close - it really is a holiday "season".

Fall decs don't last 3 months here because it takes me so long to get in the fall mood - due to the temps. I put up the fall decs in mid-October, they will come down this weekend. Christmas decs come down before New Year's.

tina

Mitch, ever since learning about your Thanksgiving date I've envied it. Even early November would be better than what we have.

I do the outside the first weekend in December, the inside goes on as long as I have the patience to tweak :^). I don't take it down until the 12th night so I do get to enjoy it for a little while. The actual tree (we cut a real cedar tree) comes in about the 20th and goes out a day or two after Christmas....I'm terrified of fire, BTDT, and yep, have the scars to prove it! When we take it outside after Christmas, I load the branches with suet and leave it for my feathery friends. They usually finish off the feast by March.

I usually start the day after Thanksgiving if I am not busy with something else that day. I did however, find a nice 4 ft. tree for DD's BR. That tree is up in her BR, and is lit & fully decorated. I found great bright colored ornaments, etc. in pinks, blues, purples, etc. It is really a cute look for her bedroom.

We are hosting Thanksgiving this year, but no guests will see evidence of anything "Christmas". I love Fall decor and hate to see it put away:(.

I have seen many lit & decorated Christmas trees in the front windows of homes in several neighborhoods in our town. Perhaps they're not hosting Thanksgiving and have gotten an early start on their decorating?

To each his own.

When dd was small, we started the tradition of setting up the tree on Thanksgiving day. She loved being the boss of decorating the tree and it kept her out of my hair while I was cooking :)

I love Autumn and I love Thanksgiving and so I can't imagine ruining it (for me) by putting up Christmas decs beforehand. Thanks AWM for posting the words to my favorite Thanksgiving song, "Over The River and Through The Woods". It makes me happy every time I hear it.

If it were up to me, I'd wait and put up our Christmas decs the first weekend in December, so that we could really enjoy a long weekend, leisurely, holiday weekend after Thanksgiving. But, I "shot myself in the foot" years ago by letting my kiddos talk me into starting the day after Tday. It's now become "the tradition" and my sweet 16 y/o DD tells me it would "ruin everything" to not decorate for Christmas the entire long weekend after Thanksgiving (sigh!). So, younger parents, be careful of the traditions you start early on, as they may turn around and bite you in the butt later ;^D

Wishing everyone who's celebrating, a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Lynn

I have to start before Thanksgiving or I would never get it finished. Luckily, most of my Christmas decor is more about frosted fruit so it doesn't look too out of place for Thanksgiving.

I've had eight trees up more than ten days already. Only two aren't yet decorated. I won't do one in the dining room until Friday but I am going to try to have the mantels done prior.

We are only early because the house is going to be open for a holiday tour dec 4th. But I think next year I will go ahead and do the top two floors prior to thanksgiving. A few extra weeks is heaven if you love Christmas decor.

You have all seen my line....but being the official home that Santa barred on...I must use every day I can get...if it gets dark early...I'm gonna start stringing lights!

We had our primary Thanksgiving with DS' family and DD, and today's is at my brother's so we've started hauling up the decorations early. We had Thanksgiving at our weekend log cabin, and went down the hill in a golf cart to a 100+ log cabin to poke around. My 7 year old grandson and 4 year old granddaughter were on the back, and broke out in singing "Over then river" spontaneously. It was magical, and I think of it over and over so I'll never forget it.
Dee

Yes, I put up my tree last weekend because that is when I had the time to do it.

Still have the pumpkin from Halloween and the pear tree topiaries from Home Decorators.