How early is too early to put up your Christmas tree? | Paul Ashenden & Kara Jung

Christmas is in December and it’s madness to put up the tree before then, right? Take our poll here.

Kara Jung and Paul Ashenden have differing views on when it’s time to put up the Christmas tree.

Office Grinch and Sunday Mail editor Paul Ashenden says it’s ridiculous to be putting up the tree this weekend. But Christmas tragic and deputy digital editor Kara Jung says it’s a South Aussie tradition that should be embraced. So is it time to put up your tree?

No, it’s waaaay too early: Paul Ashenden

Paul, is that you? The Grinch at the 2022 National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant in 2022. Picture: Matt Loxton

It’s an annual debate in my house, and one exacerbated this year by the early date of this weekend’s National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant.

The pageant has long marked the date after which many households in this state wipe the dust off the Christmas tree box and rearrange furniture to find a spot for this rather cumbersome interior design feature.

Like the pageant though, a justifiably beloved institution since 1933, the putting up of trees and other Christmas decorations in November is mostly confined to South Australia.

In most other jurisdictions around the country (and the world, for that matter) December 1 is sensibly acknowledged as the more widely accepted start of the Christmas decoration season.

I have three children who were all born interstate but we returned to SA before any of them started school, so they have effectively grown up equating the pageant with our Christmas tree.

Mid-November has always seemed a bit far out from Christmas for me but I have previously done the right thing and begrudgingly waddled out to the shed to drag down our now 21-year-old fake tree from its hiding place.

But the early timing of this year’s pageant (brought forward to avoid a clash with Remembrance Day) seems a good excuse for me to draw a line in the sand and say what I’ve been thinking for many years: November is too early for Christmas decorations.

I am, of course, all for celebrating the joy of Christmas. It’s one of my favourite times of the year and the pageant is one of the great annual events in this state. But erecting the Christmas tree on the first weekend of November? No thanks.

In fact, let’s seize the moment and boldly declare that, henceforth, SA households should join the rest of the nation and refrain from putting up Christmas tree decorations until December 1.

It’s a controversial call bound to create outrage among many (my family included), but here are five reasons November is too early for Christmas trees.

It seems the timing of when to put up a Christmas tree is not so clear cut.

1) It creates unnecessary household clutter. I am sure there are some houses whose interior set-up is not disrupted by the erecting of a floor-to-ceiling Christmas tree, but mine is certainly not one of them. Furniture needs to be rearranged. Couches that have been strategically placed in logical locations that makes the room the most functional location are moved to less logical locations that make the room less functional.

2) It takes the edge off the special nature of Christmas. Yuletide is special because it only happens once a year. If the tree and decorations are up for two months out of every 12, surely the shine comes off the excitement of their presence. The value of gold or diamonds is testament to the fact that the more unique and rare a commodity, the more precious it becomes. Christmas should be a beautiful and precious jewel that stands out from the crowd, not a run-of-the-mill, everyday rock dulled by its everyday normalcy.

3) It’s unfair on our children. Sure, kids around SA will be excited if they get to put up their Christmas trees this weekend, but what then? They have to wait nearly two months walking past it every day, pining for the presents that won’t be there for nearly two months. It could almost be classified as child abuse! There’s a reason most advent calendars have 24 or 25 doors and not 51 – the number of days between this year’s pageant day and December 25.

4) It’s expensive. Everyone knows you can’t put up a Christmas tree without covering it with decorative lights. And once the Christmas tree lights are up, the pressure is on to adorn the front and roof of the house with hundreds of metres of string lights, curtain lights, light-up reindeers, inflatable Santas and the dozens of other type of electric decorations all designed to burn a big hole in your wallet when the power bill arrives.

5) It’s November. I know that’s more of a statement of fact than an argument, but … well … seriously, it’s November. This is a month we should be concentrating on the Melbourne Cup, the First Test, the national draft and planting veggies in the backyard. In South Australia, November is also a month we should celebrate the joy the Christmas pageant brings … but that doesn’t mean we need to be erecting our Christmas trees.

Yes, it’s time to put up the Christmas tree: Kara Jung

It’s the most wonderful time of year!

Who is getting excited? Santa is coming to town to parade through our streets on Saturday kicking off the festive season, which culminates on Christmas Day where we wake up to presents under a beautifully decorated plastic tree.

Every year, at our house, we pull the tree box out of the damp cellar on pageant weekend and the magic begins. For parents across the state it’s a marker to put up the tree. So you can probably share in my surprise when I heard the office Grinch, oops I mean, Weekend Editor Paul Ashenden, grumpily declare it was “too bloody early” to put up the tree. Let me tell you why he’s wrong.

1. Tradition. Rituals are important to our wellbeing. Our family puts up the Christmas tree together after the Christmas Pageant (whether we go to it or not).

In the coming weeks, we’ll choose our Christmas ham and make a big platter with summer stone fruits and fresh bread and sit down and watch the cricket together.

In December, we’ll take our family trip to buy boxes of cherries and eat cherry ice cream at the local orchard.

Research shows us that traditions give security and belonging, teach family values and promote healthy and lasting relationships between generations.

And it can help maintain healthy bonds as children grow into adults themselves.

It keeps family stories and beliefs alive as they are handed down, generation to generation.

And let’s face it, the Pageant and putting up the tree is one collective tradition South Aussies rightly hold dear. You don’t mess with that – even if the pageant is a little earlier this year.

2. Putting up the decorations early extends the excitement of the festive season. As soon as that angel sits atop the tree in our home (the same angel – slightly tattered now – that sat upon the tree for all my childhood Christmases) I am transported instantly to the magic I felt as a kid at Christmas time. Who wouldn’t want more of that?

3. Let the social fun and games begin. From early October the group chats and messages start. “It’s been too long – it’s time for a Christmas catch up!” and suddenly the November calendar is choccas full of Christmas catch ups. In other words, Christmas has started. It’s time to lean into it and put up the tree – especially if you’re hosting one of those catch ups. You don’t want people to think you’re a grinch!

4. Maintenance. You need November to “fix” the tree. For parents with young children, you’ll know what I mean. You joyously decorate the tree together but your little one is still developing her sense of style and artistic flair, so all the red baubles have finished up in a clump at the bottom left-hand side of the tree. Your eldest likes the angel and all the homemade decorations they’ve made each year at school, so those are all clumped at the top, threatening to topple the tree. There’s nothing at all hanging at the back of the tree because the kids just didn’t think of it. For my slightly OCD mind this is enough to trigger an eye twitch every time I walk through my loungeroom. It will take at least a month to subtlety spread out the misplaced baubles.

5. Music. Who doesn’t love an excuse to pull out and sing loudly along to Mariah Carey’s iconic Merry Christmas album?