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Peter Martin
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Location: Canada
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Obviously the day itself is fixed, but is the whole festive period shifting forward?

It's not my imagination that people have started getting into the Christmas spirit earlier. Obviously shops have long been in habit of putting Christmas stuff up well before December, but lots of people here start putting up decorations in late November (or even earlier).

And there's a local radio station here that now starts playing Christmas songs in mid-November. Not just some Christmas songs... only Christmas songs. They completely end this on Christmas day. On Boxing Day, they play zero Christmas songs. It's as though Christmas is over for them after Christmas Day.

And then there's the opening line in Taylor Swift's song Lover which goes "We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January." My reaction to which was: doesn't everybody? But then I started thinking maybe they don't and it made me wonder if Christmas is truly shifting forward.

So, when for you personally is the beginning and end of the Christmas period? Is this different from when you were a child?

When I was a child, we wouldn't put the tree up until it was double-digits into December. End of Christmas was 6 January.

I now find myself playing Christmas songs in very late November and the tree tends to go up the first weekend in December. I still keep everything up until 5 or 6 January.
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

This is nothing new, at least in America. 

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Vinny Valenti
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I'm noticing this, too. This was the first year that I noticed some of our neighbors putting up lights BEFORE Thanksgiving.

In our home growing up - Legitimate X-Mas season (how long the tree stayed up) was around Dec 8 through Jan 5.

Don't get me started about Back To School ads appearing in early July now......I STILL cringe when I start to see them, and I've been out of school for decades.
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Joe Smith
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

We, (my family),have been slowly eliminating it from our lives.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I put out my meagre Xmas decorations (some Hallmark ornaments and a Coca-Cola Santa) the day after Thanksgiving and take them down New Year's Day.

When I was married, we'd put up a full fledged tree (artificial) which often stayed up until June!

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Brian Hughes
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

This year, I found myself wanting to decorate a little earlier than the day after Thanksgiving.  I and others I spoke to recently feel like getting in that mood a little early what with all that is going on lately.

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Brian Miller
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

We had people in our town that had their trees up and houses decorated
before Halloween this year.
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Michael Casselman
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

For decades radio stations have been racing to go all-Christmas in their respective markets. My local go-to 'goes Christmas every year' station flipped on November 4 at 3PM. Just a few years back, it had held back until Black Friday to make the switch, but the advertising money apparently dictates an earlier switch.

When I was a kid, mid December the tree (a REAL tree, not one that came in a box) went up, and it stayed up for the whole 12 days of Christmas until after the first full week of January.
Nowadays... we bust out the tree mid-November and get the outside decorations up before the first big snowstorm if we can help it. That way, the weekend after Christmas we can pull it all down until next year.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

MAD did a Christmas Alphabet parody. I recall (dimly) one of the verses:

A is for Advertising

They urge us to buy. They ring in the season.... in early July!

There was also:

D is for DJ

We'd like to run down, for playing "White Christmas" sunrise to sundown!

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Paul Reis
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

after my (older) brother and sister got married my mother, tired of the negotiations of who 'has' Christmas where, and and all the logistics of travelling, she began a "Christmas is the weekend after and everyone shows up at my house"
typically a saturday, sometimes the sunday, once on the monday (wrt the weather), but always the weekend after ... you know, when prices for everything drop on Boxing Day !!!
my brother and sister (and their kids) would do the hustle&bustle and put up with all the stress catering to the December 25th deadline and their in-laws customs and friend commitments and then then just relax.
i loved it as a kid, when i was a student, and my early married life.

to me, Christmas is ignoring all the hoopla before December 25, and enjoy 'relax' time after (with whatever i got on the day-after-sales)

edited to add: my tree and decorations are all the Christmas coffee cups from current and years past Tim Hortons - easy to put up, easy to take down ... 


Edited by Paul Reis on 29 November 2022 at 7:47pm
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 29 November 2022 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

When I lived in London, my Christmas tree was a one-foot thing from John Lewis that basically stayed in one piece. It was fibre optic and you plugged it in and you were done. Most convenient thing in the world.

It didn't make the list of things I took to Canada and we upgraded to a huge thing we got from Costco. It looks great, but I kind of dread lugging it out of the basement and putting it up. Putting up the tree was a lot of fun when I was a teenager. I still get a kick out of some of the decorations, but putting it up seems more of a chore these days.
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Brian Floyd
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Posted: 30 November 2022 at 12:15am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Haven't put our Christmas tree up yet. Usually its up a day or two after Thanksgiving, but my wife and I do Doordash as a team (she does the driving), and we've been too tired when we get home.

I got a new ornament to go on it this year: The Hallmark TARDIS!




Edited by Brian Floyd on 30 November 2022 at 12:16am
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