Search icon

Life

22nd Nov 2020

This is when you should put up your Christmas tree in 2020 – and it actually is November

This is about history, and slightly about boredom.

Niamh Maher

Please don’t @ me, we’re just having a chat about trees.

‘Tis the season to celebrate anything… literally anything at this point. As events go, putting up a Christmas tree is certainly a celebratory one so, we’re not for one second insinuating that you shouldn’t get that tree up early.

We’re just telling you that historically, at this very moment in time, the Christmas tree should not be up.

It’s always a bone of contention amongst my friends as to when one should embark on hoisting the ceremonial dead tree up in the living room. It’s an even bigger conversation as to when it should be taken down, there may have been one year that I left mine up till May.

I stand by my decision.

So, why is it that every year people argue over when the Christmas tree should go up?

The truth is, it seems to drastically differ from family to family, and every year there is also a different “official” date that you should be sticking to, if you’re into religion that is.

In my family, for example, we don’t follow the Advent calendar. For whatever reason, we (my mother) put up our beautiful Christmas tree on the second weekend of December and not a minute before.

If we’re to follow the tradition of Advent, then the Christmas tree should go up on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, this year that falls on the 29th of November which is next weekend and still firmly in the month of November!

All you early birds be warned though, a real pine Christmas tree only has a lifetime of about four weeks, so things could be looking pretty grim by December 25th.

What about taking the bad boy down I hear you ask?

Again, if you want to go traditional then according to the Christian calendar the festivities run for twelve nights from the birth of Jesus. This year, that takes us up to Tuesday the 5th of January, depending on if the big man (Jesus not Santa) was born on Christmas eve or Christmas day, which I think is an issue we’ll tackle another day.

If you’re a fan of the fake tree then whack it up now if it brings you joy, and remember, keeping it up till May is perfectly acceptable.*

It’s 2020 after all, we deserve all the joy we can get.

*If you keep your Christmas tree up til May of 2021 do expect serious judgement from your friends and/or family