What day can you start decorating your Christmas tree?

This is a personal taste/lifestyle question and has as many correct answers as there are people. I truth there is no hard and fast rule.

-If Christmas is a big time of year for you to entertain and you use an artificial tree, you should decorate your home before your first big party of the season.

Our household starts the neighbourhood round of parties off with a Yuletide tea, the first weekend of the month, so our outdoor decorations (just lights) go up in November, but do not get turned on until the party. The week before the party we get the house cleaned up and decorated. Our tree is an artificial one so it is not a problem for us to have it up and decorated all month long.

-If Christmas is "no big deal" to you, you do not have to decorate at all. Several "bachelor" friends of ours don't decorate, but enjoy our decoration and hospitality during the season. One woman I know puts a foot high, pre-decorated, mini tree on her kitchen table Christmas morning and puts it away that night. She works long hours and has no family so this works for her.

-If your tree is "real" you may want to hold off decorating, or at least putting up the tree, until a couple of days before Christmas to keep from having a "Charlie Brown Christmas tree" with all its needles on the floor on the gifts under it. Our neighbours decorate the house and tree Christmas Eve for this reason and have the tree out by New year's Day.

-There are even cultures where children are raised to believe Santa brings the tree with him when he visits and so the decorations tend to go up while the kids are in bed Christmas eve, while Santa and his elves are putting up the tree.

-Combine households often find themselves working out compromises, particularly if one member likes to go "whole hog" starting the first of December and the other thinks decorating for Christmas means putting a candy cane in their coffee on the 25th.