Best time to trim that tree? Whenever the holiday spirit moves you

These days, you often find Christmas decorations next to Halloween candy in the stores.

In May, Better Homes & Gardens magazine made a case for decorating early. Among the reasons:

• The decorations evoke feelings of nostalgia, excitement and happiness (harking back to childhood).

• They foster feelings of coziness in a dark, cold time of the year.

• Decorating early gives you more time to enjoy your efforts.

• Getting decorations up early leaves more time to enjoy other holiday traditions later.

But regardless of magazines and merchants, your friends and neighbors aren’t necessarily decking the halls extra early.

An informal survey of Tribune-Review readers found most people wait until after Thanksgiving to move on to the next holiday season.

“Thanksgiving first,” Jen Costello of Hempfield said.

“Always the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I believe in celebrating each holiday independently,” Kary Milan of Greensburg said.

“Post-Thanksgiving, because I like keeping Thanksgiving a separate holiday,” added Lauren Koker, executive director of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor. “I also celebrate Orthodox Christmas, so my decorations stay up until then.”

“I say no Christmas before Thanksgiving — with the exception of the exterior, depending on the weather,” said Joe Weltner of Harrison.

But all bets are off as soon as dinner is over.

“The first tree goes up in my house on the night of Thanksgiving,” he said.

Notice he said “the first tree.”

“Normally, I do 15, but this year I scaled it back to seven,” he said. “In my old house, I used to do 22. And each tree has a different theme.”

Blame covid-19 for the lack — if you can call it that — of Weltner’s holiday spirit.

“With the pandemic continuing, not as many people are coming over,” he said. “But it’s still ridiculous.”

More time to enjoy

Christine Spece of Harrison operates on a Thanksgiving-adjacent timetable. She and her husband start bringing boxes out of storage a few days before the start of hunting season.

“I start decorating right after opening day,” said Spece, who calls herself “obsessed with Christmas.”

There are decorations in every room of her house. As for the outside decorations, she said, “This year we started the weekend before Thanksgiving because it was so nice out.”

Earlier-is-better proponents include Tracy Alaia, owner of Feathers Artist Market and Gifts in Irwin.

“I put (my tree) up a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. I don’t decorate it right away, but I do put the lights on,” she said. “I love to enjoy quiet nights with the glow of the tree. Since I work in retail, it’s so nice to have the decorations up and some quiet time to enjoy them before it gets too busy.”

And there’s no shame in mixing holiday themes, she added: “We decorated it the week before Thanksgiving, but we always have our Thanksgiving decor out, too.”

Work also dictates the schedule for Alicia Gribbin, a hairstylist who lives in Youngwood.

“I usually decorate before Thanksgiving because my job makes me too busy closer to Christmas,” she said. “But we put our tree up after because we get a real tree and want it to last.”

Having kids can be a decorating game-changer, too, as it was for Mandy Zalich, CEO of Westmoreland Community Action.

“It was always after Thanksgiving until my son was born. This year, we started before,” she said. “This way, he can enjoy it a little longer.”

On the flip side is the European tradition of waiting until mid-December or later to trim the tree.

Estonian native Kadri Siinmaa chimed in on the survey from Portugal, where she lives with her husband and daughter.

“In Estonia, traditionally in the morning of (the) 24th of December, we bring the tree in and set it up,” she said. “But we may go look for the tree in the forest and take it couple of days earlier, depending on the weather.”