decorate no more than a week 1/2 before and take all the decorations down the NEXT day. (only in a perfect world..)

NO---not if it makes one happy---we need all the happy we can get these days.
That wall of old house really looks good---what is it and where can one get it?

Agreed, I love that spooky house wall. And I religiously start decorating October 1st for Halloween and EVERY YEAR wish my boyfriend would let me decorate earlier.

i'd say for halloween starting the month of is okay- around the first of october i'll get my halloween stuff out. for christmas i start right after thanksgiving and take everything soon after new years.

i love decorating for holidays though- i'm a bit of a christmas fanatic, i consider right after christmas to new years "christmas time" and decorations are one of my favorite parts of the holidays so it doesn't ruin the actual day for me!

but please do not go overboard... i hate houses that are OVERLY decorated to the point of being tacky.

oops, i meant right after new thanksgiving-new years is christmas time for me.

I don't decorate for Halloween, I might buy a "fall pumpkin" but it's usually one of the white ones and I get it about two weeks before the holiday and it lasts a pretty long time. I keep it out until Thanksgiving and then the day after Thanksgiving I put out Christmas, keep it up until January 3rd. Christmas decorations are very sentimental to me and what I love most, so I put it up, enjoy it for a month and a few days and then it comes down. I've never thought that it's too soon or out for too long. Heck, if the stores can put their decorations for Christmas out in October, I should at least be allowed to have mine out all of December!

I just got my Pottery Barn catalog today, too. It looks like they have featured all of the holidays for the rest of the year in it (incl. thanksgiving and christmas/chanukah). I think that retailers start way too early with seasonal merchandise, but that is my opinion. Starting earlier doesn't make me buy any more than I ordinarily would. I don't buy a whole lot of seasonal decorations, but for what I do buy, I tend to buy at the end of the season and then store it for next year.

I think that mid-sept is fine for fall-oriented decorating. It's when the gourds come into season anyway.

For the actual holidays - I think 4-5 weeks prior is enough time to get your enjoyment out of it. :-) Can't Wait.

http://embritadesign.blogspot.com

Christmas is an exception for me:
up early, down early
mid-November, early January (Canadian Thanksgiving is conveniently celebrated in October).
I love it that way... holiday decorating doesn't become a chore and it gives me an opportunity to savour the essence of the season slowly and mindfully (as it should be...)

A few fall decor pieces go up in my house the 2nd week in Sept. then those come down Oct 1st and are replaced with Halloween decor. My neighborhood (my street, in particular) is very halloween-centric so it is fun to be part of the festivity.

Christmas goes up the 2nd weekend in November with the tree trimming party the following Sunday. Some of my friends think it is too early but admit it gets them in the spirit.

I want that wall mural!

I pulled out my fall stuff last Sunday and will slowly start getting it out

Decorating for any holiday other than Christmas is a waste of time, resources and money...

...and that room is horrible - Who'd want a mural of the Psycho house in their Dining Room?

I think people should do whatever they want with their homes at any time of year. If other people don't like it, then they don't have to visit them. You should do whatever brings you joy as long as you're not hurting anyone and forget the arbitrary rules those around you try to impose.

I start planning Christmas in August!

ditto to KTG - retail calendars are actually much earlier than what you see in stores. They make more money by putting stuff out earlier because it gets customers thinking about holidays sooner. The fashion world works the same way...spring week is actually almost a year in advance.

I work in product development, so obviously I understand why seasons are put out early in retail. They have to, especially for short seasons like Valentines, etc. It's simply not cost-effective to only have their merchandise out a week or two in advance of a holiday.

That said, the one thing that irks me about seasonal merchandise being out "early" is the fact that stores like Target sell out of the coolest Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving even, and then never really get it back in stock. For those of us too busy to get our decorations going until Thanksgiving are out of luck.

only pumpkins outside at halloween, for the day, and chrsitmas- 2 weeks b4 christmas and only allowed up to 12 days AFTER christmas or its bad luck.

Seeing that image today, in 80 degree heat, my first thought was that someone was making a new Addams Family movie.

I absolutely HATE all the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-Hannukah-New Year decorations starting the day after Labor Day, the split-second the "Back-to-School" theme is retired! The leaves haven't even begun to turn yet or the flowers wilt, for gosh sakes, and there Christmas ornaments on display! I feel like living life according to the progression of the seasons, with the ability to savor each of them in their own time, is something the retail world is intent on robbing us of.

When I was little, my parents put up our Christmas tree and decorated the house on Christmas Eve after we went to bed. It was awesome to wake up to that.

If only everyone were as sane & sensible as YOUR parents, Mrs.B.

I've grown to hate the extended "holiday season"-- how can ANY holiday seem special or festive when one is bombarded with the trappings a full five weeks beforehand?

My favorite day of the year is January 2.

***Decorating for any holiday other than Christmas is a waste of time, resources and money...***

And decorating for Christmas is like a mutual bond for Junior's college fund? Please.

Holidays are fun. Do what's fun for you. Don't act like yours is innately the only sensible or correct choice.

A week or two before Halloween is fine in my book, with all the skeletons and whatnot removed shortly thereafter. But leave the uncarved pumpkins and other fall decorations that aren't spooky. As for Christmas, our family has decorations up mid-December and takes them down January 2nd so as not to interfere with football on the 1st... Since I like a fresh tree, having a tree up any sooner or longer is a fire hazard!

I don't notice it so much, but then, I live in Canada - it gets cooler earlier, we celebrate an earlier Thanksgiving, and by the time Grey Month (November) rolls around, we're done with our short, beautiful burst of autumn, so we might as well embrace it while we have it. I save my annoyance for the Christmas ornaments that are still out in August.

I love Fall, so it can never come too early for me! I'm so excited when I see Fall stuff in stores and magazines; it just makes me feel so happy! Sadly, Fall WEATHER tends to come pretty late here in Texas, though it has been in the high 70s the last couple days which I'm enjoying like nobody's buziness!

*business* oops

I definitely agree with what most have said, decorating for home is totally different than retail. I work at a large home furnishings store and we received all of our Halloween merchandise today! We also are already planning for Thanksgiving and our first two major shipments of Christmas merchandise will be in the store the first two weeks of Octobers. Stores want to give the customers time to find what they want.

seasonal decorating - gourds, pumpkins, fall leaves, mums, colored cabbage, fine from now til early december, (even into christmas if that's your thing/color scheme).

holiday decorating. sorry, but save for christmas/nye ( when i have alot of visitors and nostalgia), i find most other holiday decor tacky (especially valentines, easter, and july fourth beyond a flag) but i'm in a childless home. if little ones were present, i'd do it all for as long as it made them smile / giggle.

I spent ten years in retail. So because we were putting out Christmas stuff in October, by the time Christmas rolled around I was so tired of it all.

So I never, ever, decorated my house for Christmas, or any other holiday. My home was the only place in the world I could get away from all that Christmas stuff, lol

I never even put up a tree.

i was just talking about this very thing - i say start of fall - late sept - good to go. my friend said oct 1 at the earliest.

My dining room (visible from the foyer) has a fall tablescape since last week - gourds, candles, a funky ceramic gourd... Thanksgiving is less than a month away ( am Canadian) and I love the fall colors. After thanksgiving it becomes a little more gothic for Halloween and then its all put away November 1.

I guess I'm the odd one out. I never decorate for any holiday, and I hate holiday decorations. It seems like an empty tradition to me and a waste of time and money. Plus you have to store all that stuff the rest of the year. Call me Scrooge.

To each their own though. I don't really pay much attention to it.

i believe 2-3 weeks prior to said holiday is a good time to put up decorations, and they should be taken down within one week after. they're around just enough so you don't get sick of looking at them.

madsarah, i agree with you RE: walgreens and target. they are relentlessly earlier every year. the walgreens by us is already starting to put out the Xmas stuff.

alas, Xmas, and Halloween are two of the biggest sales generators for retail. they are over-capitalized more and more every year, leaving many of us numb to the true spirits of these holidays.

Decorating really early is tacky, but then so are most of the decorations. I think of Halloween as a day, not a season. The autumnal or harvest decorations that go with Thanksgiving are fine once it's actually autumn or harvest season. Running Thanksgiving into Christmas just creates a holidays glut. Advent used to be a winter fast, and Christmas a welcome feast. Many people I know are so sick of Christmas that they tear down the tree on the 26th of December -- and the New Year diet starts before the twelve days of Christmas are over. All the good holidays sprung from seasonal and agricultural rhythms: if we ignore them, the tradition becomes hollow.

Perhaps our dismay at having the holidays introduced SO EARLY has more to do with how fast life seems to go the older you get. It seems we've barely packed away the beach towesl and it's time to jump into fall and before the pumpkin can rot we need to put up the Christmas wreaths. Push, push, push. Not wanting to see holiday decorations so early is a way we push back -- "stop rushing me".
I think we should take our cue from the kids. Haven't heard a single kid complain about decorations going up too early. They LOVE to live in anticipation of upcoming events and enjoy every single one of them when they come -- perhaps all the more so for having waited FOREVER for it to come.
Remember counting down the 25 days until Christmas -- used to be each day felt like 10 and now they flash by in an instant. Living in the moment is wonderful, but anticipating those special moments is a big part of the fun as well.

"NO---not if it makes one happy---we need all the happy we can get these days."

Exactly.
Last time I checked, you're supposed to surround yourself with things you love in your home. If you love the season/holiday, why not? If it's not your game, then that's cool too. I grew up with Christmas trees and red bows and canned snow spray for the windows and blinking multicolored lights, so I still try and make some room for it in my life.

Sometimes, you just have to remind yourself of what it felt like when you never cared what others thought about your space, tacky or not, if it made you happy, you did it.

I'd say, you can start decorating for a holiday the month it is in. Take the decorations down just after the holiday is over. For Christmas, take the decorations down on New Year's Day.

http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p11143/index.cfm?pkey=challoween-decor

That is the wall mural

"Decorating for any holiday other than Christmas is a waste of time, resources and money...

...and that room is horrible - Who'd want a mural of the Psycho house in their Dining Room?"
----
So what makes Christmas so special?? And I would want that mural in my dining room, to answer your question.

Seriously, get over yourself.

I don't mind it when stores come out with holiday stuff a little early. It means that I can pick up stuff when there's still variety and shelves haven't been ransacked and left bare because everyone in town suddenly realized it was two weeks before a holiday and headed straight for the store. That said though, I usually don't decorate for holidays (christmas and thanksgiving) until the month of. halloween, while fun, gets no more than a week. I have no problem buying decorations early, they just stay hidden until I think it's time for my house to look 'festive'!

My husband made such a fuss about putting up outside Christmas lights when the weather was still warm (we live in Michigan) that I have decided to forego holidays lights. I've always thought Thanksgiving weekend was soon enough to decorate for Christmas. So . . . no outside lights and my "tree" is six foot tall artifical bamboo tree with a lighted star on top and a single strand of white lights. I told my grandkids it was an avant garde tree! He's such a Scrooge!

I expect stores to display christmas merch from about halfway through October to December 24th. Any earlier, and I make it a note not to buy anything from there, any later and I expect the stuff to be at least half off, which is when I buy my decorations for next year. I personally celebrate from Thanksgiving Day (I celebrate my turkey day the night before, so on T-Day other family members can spend it with family/friends that are sticklers for that Thursday) and set up the tree while eating leftovers to Christmas Day when I take down the tree. Because by December 25th, everyone from family to friends to malls to radio stations to tv have drained every bit of christmas cheer from me.

I just decorated for halloween today, sept 20th because i couldn't wait to see the look on my four year old nephews face and I was tired of the summer colors and shells, time to move to fall. The halloween decor out now I just Love, black and orange look so good together. I bought some gourgeous orange and black fine glitter and can't wait to make cards with it.

Money money money, thats what its all about these days

<blockquote>"And out of curiousity, how many pumpkins do you have to go through to have one fresh for Halloween if you start putting them out now?"</blockquote>
Um...none? I mean, if you put a whole, uncarved pumpkin on your porch or whatever today, it will still be quite edible after Halloween.

That said, my local pharmacy and supermarket have had the Christmas crap out for probably two weeks now, and it really is the thin edge of the wedge. By the time Christmas finally comes, I'm pitifully grateful for the fact that that means it will all STOP! I didn't hate it for the first week or two back when Christmas started after Thanksgiving, but now I hate it at the beginning because it's ridiculous, and I hate it when it's actually seasonally appropriate because I'm completely sick of it already. Yay, marketing folks! You've managed to completely ruin the whole thing! And I know for a fact that I'm not the only person who feels this way.

I agree....I hate seeing Halloween stuff when the fourth of July products have barely made their exit. And when I go to Target in October to shop for Halloween, onlyto find giant Christmas trees staring down at me....it really kills the mood!!!

But on a happier note.....I started shopping online....and found some AWESOME new holiday 'table decor' products that are so cool.....they have Halloween & Christmas chair skirts.....love the Halloween ones. But I'll be getting the Christmas ones too if I can't find them in the stores.
Their website is www.scurtz.com. I had to share.