When does your Christmas Tree go up?

I've just spoken to my mother who told me about an arrangement she has with a neighbour. Said neighbour loves to decorate her house inside and out for the entire month of December, so much so that she has to decant a fair amount of lamps, photos & paintings for the duration. As my mother has plenty of spare room in her house, neighbour's stuff fills up mother's box room in exchange for neighbour looking after mother's house while she visits my sister for christmas.

We have our own Christmas traditions which the family all love and would be upset by the slightest change. Now the grandchildren can start to enjoy it all too.

Our tree goes up after our son's birthday as we always wanted him to feel that it was his day and nothing to do with Christmas. It has ornaments they made when they were young and things we have bought as mementos of various events and places which make for a very happy time when decorating. It is always a real traditional tree which is as big as the house will take as we love everything about Christmas.

Shouldn't we have a Christmas emoticon?

Our middle daughter has a birthday on the 11th , so nothing chrismassy before then even though she is now 31 ! Out tree goes up the weekend before Christmas ( any sooner and I would be fed up with it by the day). All decorations come down on 12th night.I love Christmas and all the trimmings but I like it to be short and sweet.

We decorated yesterday , put the tree up this morning .

Looks great , I love Christmas , but decorations and tree are up makes it even more Christmassy [festive smile]

Also always have stacks of candles round the place , lite, makes it even more Christmassy if that is possible .

Ours always went up on Dec 5th when we had my DD's birthday party - it was part of the party - all the children would make decorations and add them to the tree.

Our decorations are far from tasteful - all the things the children made over the years and woe betide me if I left any off. There is one known as the "wicker turd" (just don't ask!!) and if that is left off then trouble ensues.

I once tried to suggest that we might have a theme (red and silver for instance) and was told very clearly by my cockney SIL that there was a theme - "It is a Christmas feme!"

This year it will go up when my OH is well enough to go into the loft to fetch it - it is a very nice artificial one that I bought online one January when they were very cheap. We just can't manage a real one any more. My GS loves getting it out of its box and helping me to fit it together.

On the subject of over-the-top lights on houses I simply love them! - they make me smile as I drive by and my children would have loved it when they were little. I understand all the logical arguments about electricity etc. - but they are such fun!!!

When the children were at school they always broke up on a Wednesday lunchtime so we had a tradition of having fish and chips for lunch and decorating the tree in the afternoon. We had a great greengrocer who would leave the tree on the patio as he passed on his way from the wholesalers. The trees in those days came in a trunk off-cut so it stood on the patio looking ripe for decorating.

Today we bought an artificial tree which will, hopefully, pass muster with the daughters! The boys are not so bothered. If we can't stand it, we'll put it away until we are REALLY old and REALLY can't cope with a real one - I hate the mess when we take it down . We checked in the garden centre and a Nordmann Fir would cost £70 this year for our normal size and the equivalent artificial one was £200.

We also have one of those 'paper trees' that John Lewis were selling last year and which seem to be all over the place now. That stands on the desk in the hall looking designery as opposed to the main tree which looks as though every tatty bauble in the world has been thrown at it. We also have one in the 'playroom' which the 3 girls claimed as their own and which has the most appalling purple things on it.

I love it.

The weekend before Christmas usually. Far too much to do on Christmas Eve to put up the tree.

Usually the weekend before Christmas, but we might do it weekend before that this year, as the day is early in the week. (Not sure if that makes sense!)

My husband and I have always had different ideas of when the tree should go up. He says it should be put up on Christmas Eve and taken down on Twelfth Night. Personally, I prefer to put it up about a week before Christmas and would take it down before New Year if it was up to me. We compromise and it goes up a week before Christmas and comes down at Twelfth Night!

Ours usually goes up the weekend before Christmas although I believe it was always supposed to be unlucky to bring any greenery into the house before Christmas Eve. I can remember walking down to the local park with my Dad and a pram to collect holly branches that the council would be cuuting down. The thing I always miss now is candles on the tree. At tea time the front room would be opened and the candles on the tree would be lighted and the whole room would be full of the smell of pine resin made so much stronger by the heat of the candles. Fairy lights just don't do it for me.

We usually do it on Christmas Eve, but the next time we put up a Christmas tree will be December 2013. As we are currently living surrounded by pots of paint, lining paper and half a dozen different size ladders, not to mention a temporary cat-proof fence woven in and out of the balusters to prevent the senile Fishpaste from plummeting to her death, Christmas decorations seem somehow de trop.

Tree (rooted one), greenery and all our old Christmas cards (now send Christmas letters by email) go up the weekend before Christmas Day and come down January 2nd, ready for a nice clean start to the year! That covers us for Christmas week parties and get togethers. Then we plant the tree in the garden if the ground is not too frozen. Simples!