It seems like every year there is a fun discussion that we have that gets controversial. It is when to put up Christmas decorations. Many people like to blast Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” and have their tree up by Thanksgiving. Others decide to wait even as long as Christmas Eve to put it up.

Let’s first go through when not to put up decorations.

You should never have your Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving. I find it weird when I am sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner, and I am sitting across from a tree with red and green decorations and tinsel. It just feels out of place.

You also should not put your tree up during winter break. It feels too late to do this. The only exception to this rule would be that you decorate with family and they could not all be there until winter break. An example of this is having a sibling at college.

This leaves us with about a three-week long period from the fourth Thursday of November to around the third Friday of December. I do not feel like you should put up decorations on Black Friday, so now that leaves 21 days.

Exam week is also out, because it would not make sense to be decorating and studying at the same time. You would either lose the family aspect of the season, or you would do horribly on your finals.

Now with fourteen days left, it is just up to personal preference. My family almost always gets our tree the first Saturday of December, but we wait a little longer to decorate the tree and the rest of the house.

I have nothing against people who decorate for Christmas on All Saints Day, but I personally feel that is too early and will feel out of place for an extra month.

With that being said, I personally think that you have a two-week period to decorate for Christmas: The first weekend of December to the second. This year, that would be December 6-14.