In areas where winter exists, outdoor lighting can go up in late Sept. Putting up lights when it's cold and wet is a pain! Other outdoor decor can wait a bit. Indoors, anytime you want!

We do most of the indoor and outdoor decorating after Thanksgiving. The tree goes up after December 21st. That's a family birthday and we try to keep b-day and Christmas separated some.

I start putting up my decorations just a few days before Christmas and haha find myself still putting decorations on the tree Christmas Day before my guests come. With the water damage and my ceilings having to be replaced I don't think there will be any Christmas decorations put up this season unless they do the ceilings soon. My parents always decorated the tree Christmas Eve while the kids were all in bed.

Right after Thanksgiving. Love it!

I like to get a braise going so the house smells great, and put in Christmas dvds all day. We bought a new Balsam Hill 9-ft. tree on sale after last Christmas, and I can't wait to see how it looks all decorated!

I like my outside lights up the weekend following Thanksgiving. Inside a little more slowly, I'll put a few things out, replace a painting with a magnolia wreath in the foyer, just touches here and there that won't impede cleaning house for 5 or 6 weeks ;0) The tree will go up about two weeks before Christmas and stay until New Years, we use fresh and cut our own so it's not dropping any needles or getting messy in that time span.

Last year my DH started playing Christmas music in October. I love the holidays but that was more than I could take. I like to do it over the Thanksgiving break.

The first week in December.

A week before Christmas, and it comes down on New Year's Day or shortly thereafter. A couple of years ago, just after finishing my vintage-decor guest room, I put up a small tree with all of my antique ornaments, and took pictures, because I knew it would be awhile before I used them again.. My DD and SIL now occupy that room, and there is a crib where the tree sat. ;). They live here full-time, with their two boys, so I'll probably leave the decorating up to them.

It seemed as if my late DH (who loved Christmas) used to wait for the coldest day in December to decorate outside--brrrrrrrrrrrrr! He hated putting the decorations away, so they sometimes stayed out for a couple of months. I'll let the kids take care of the outside, too.

Fall just makes me want to decorate! The annuals get pulled and the pansies are put in their place. I put out my big pumpkin (that I spayed painted with orange glitter!) and spooky stuff on the lawn. I have to get my spider web with lots of hairy spiders up.

Forgot to add that I also bought a Crab Pot Tree for the yard this year- a 6-footer! Multi-colored LED ;-)

I also just bought 3 more Old World Christmas ornaments and couple rolls of absolutely gorgeouspeacock ribbon from Costco.

I am so getting one of those crab pot trees! Thanks for the link!

Aren't they great?! I think they are still on pre-sale, so you'll save $$!

I also like that I'm supporting an American company and our American workers.

We really don't do much anymore. Our decorations, before the kids grew up and left, were modest and seasonal, secular, and completely non-religious. As has been the trend in the US across the greater population for some decades.

Now we may have just a wreath on the door and a small fake tree on an end table. Maybe in early December.

Same here, Elmer! Every year less and less, more and more simple. I think this year we will take the big train to Az so the great-grands can begin to love trains as DH has.....not sure how his knees will hold up under such work tho, and not sure, but that could be 5 minute entertainment.. I've already packed up the cookie gun and cutters so that Mommy can continue the tradition. (she's asked, so not pushing that on her) It will likely be our last migration as snow birds. As for trees and our downsizing efforts we must have eliminated all lights except for some really rare ones, most trees except for small pre-lighted table top ones. Ahhhh....freedom!

(but dust lives on....)

The crab trees seem fine at night...but I prefer decorations that look good 24/7. I have my lighted pumpkin patches out and shining..the Fall topiaries will replace that decor come November 1 and CHRISTMAS shortly after Thanksgiving.

I put out loads of greenery, garlands, sprays, bouquets and an Advent wreath on the first Sunday of Advent. The tree goes up the week before Christmas and comes down after Epiphany- January 6. I love everything about the Christmas season!!

We don't do lights. We do try to get our tree fairly early (the weekend after Thanksgiving) as all the good ones get snatched up first.

The wreaths might go up a bit later.

My DH still likes the idea of a tree. I think my DD's do expect to see one when they come.

I think it's fine to those who have to string light outside to put them up early, but I don't like to see them lit the weekend of Thanksgiving!

I like getting the lights out early, because they are a PITA to put up and I feel we get a bigger bang for the buck if we get'em out early.

That said, I think between my spotlighted Teak Isle nativity:

It depends upon what holidays you're referring to. Right now, the next "holiday" although loosely termed that, is Halloween. I have put some things outside for that.

If you are talking about Thanksgiving, I will put some things out a week or so before that.

If you mean Christmas, I will do that decorating two or three weeks before Christmas. I find that any "early" decorating get old fast and by the actual holiday I am so sick of it that it means nothing to me. So, I "decorate for the holidays" two or three weeks before the holiday.

I put my tree up right before Thanksgiving so its there for company to enjoy. I only have a small one so it's mostly for me. I don't do much decorating anymore.

Generally, we decorate for Christmas inside on Thanksgiving weekend unless we are having houseguests for Thanksgiving. If so, we decorate prior to Thanksgiving. The outside wreath gets changed to a holiday version around December 1.

Decorating for Christmas begins for me right after Thanksgiving. My Christmas village sometimes goes up before Thanksgiving.

Christmas music! I've already started. :)

I love fall, start decorating in August because I'm tired of the heat...I add pumpkins this month and turkeys next month...Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving to give the most time for the holiday decorations....also I put out a few hearts and plush toys for Valentine's Day and a lot of plush and ceramic bunnies for Easter.

I guess I decorate pretty-much year-round. In September, I put up a Fall wreath, and use fall colored flowers in the house. I use some Fall garlands here-and-there, and create some kind of fall decor for the entry hall and the dining table. Then the Fall things step aside for some Halloween fun, early-to-mid October. Halloween goes away, and I put out all kinds of Dias de Los Muertos things. After Nov. 2, the traditionally Fall things return until the day after Thanksgiving. Christmas music plays almost non-stop, and various Christmas decorations start to come out. I leave them up until Epiphany.

Really don't do much of anything for New Years, Valentine's or St Patrick's Day. I put up "Spring" things (flowers and greenery) for Spring and Easter. I decorate for Fiesta, a +/- 10 day celebration in our city with parades, coronations, parties and an overall festive outlook.

I don't do much for summer or 4th of July. Just seasonal flowers here-and-there. Then it's time for Fall...

I start one to two weeks before Christmas, and I take it all down during the week after New Year's Day. And I put out too much stuff so that it is a real chore, but the kids still like it, so I do it.

Suzue, I was referring to Christmas. It's no longer politically correct to say Christmas since not every religion believes or celebrates it. It now a holiday tree or holiday dinner. I didn't want to offend anyone.

I decorate more for autumn than for the winter holidays. I start in September and it all stays up (adding to it as the season goes forward) until the Friday after Thanksgiving. I do put it away and put up the green and red stuff until Christmas evening. Then, it's all gone until around Easter. I like a clean start to the year.

Around fifteen days, before the actual holiday. Right now, i'm busy with Halloween decorations.

Back in the day before the PC police took over our minds the time between Oct 31 and Jan 2 was commonly referred to as "The Holidays", because it is an intense time of many many holidays being celebrated. They all have THEIR OWN NAMES and they all have DIFFERENT purposes. Most commonly Christmas is decorated for, Halloween has emerged as a very close second. Pretty sure anyone reading your original question "When do you decorate for the holidays" knew you meant When do you decorate for CHRISTMAS. Some of us enjoy festivity and celebrate what we can when the time presents itself. To say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas is infusing a new label and condensing an idea that leaves some of us totally befuddled. WHICH HOLIDAY?!?!?! Why oh why oh why is wishing someone well interpreted as an insult? How is ANYONE fooled that an indoor tree bedecked with lights; not a CHRISTMAS tree--just because the stupid big box stores started saying "holiday tree"??!! WHICH HOLIDAY!?!? This non specific politically correct labeling really needs to just go away. There is no shame in anyone celebrating CHRISTMAS just as there is no shame in anyone NOT. If you choose not to SHUT THE HECK UP and leave those that do alone. It isn't about hurting YOU it is about us CELEBRATING SOMETHING marvelous.

I'm pretty sure my neighbors up the street have their holiday tree covered in purple and orange lights right now. I wouldn't say they're celebrating something marvelous, but Halloween is pretty fun. I don't need a tree to celebrate my saviors' (? triune) birthday. I celebrate that He lives daily! Yes, he was born, but it's greater that he died for me. I'd rather celebrate Easter than Christmas any day.