The fiercest holiday debate of all is once again raging in homes, offices and online forums across the U.S.: “When is the right time to put up your Christmas decorations?”
On a Reddit thread posing this very question, responses range from “Day after Halloween,” to “Day after Thanksgiving,” as well as a more nonchalant, “Whenever I feel like it.”
“Christmas is a winter theme,” wrote one user. “Pre-thanksgiving is not winter, it is fall. Snowmen and reindeer have no business being out when the leaves are orange. Decorate for Christmas no earlier than the weekend after thanksgiving.”
“What the heck do I care if strangers on the internet think I started decorating too early or too late?” replied another.
Americans are largely in agreement of when to start ramping up levels of festive cheer, with a 2024 YouGov poll showing that 75 percent of people in the U.S. who celebrate Christmas begin putting up decorations and buying presents between mid-November and mid-December.
Responses to the survey, conducted in December last year, indicated that more than half (54 percent) prefer to wait until at least December 1 before thinking about Christmas. But around one-fifth of those polled (21 percent) said they began celebrating in mid-November.
Mikel Welch, a New York-based interior designer and author, says clients never ask him to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving celebrations are finished – and that the two aesthetics are “world’s different.”
“I think people want to be able to enjoy each holiday,” he told The Independent. “People still want to celebrate, but it’s almost like you’re not allowing the holidays the opportunity to breathe… You’re just pressing fast forward. Don’t get me wrong I love Mariah Carey, but [before Thanksgiving] is just a little too soon.”
The pressure to get into Christmas mode weeks, and even months, before the big day is inevitably a boon for companies. According to Forbes, earlier campaigns give brands time to build loyalty and anticipation.
On November 1, Macy’s announced the beginning of its Christmas campaigns, including for holiday bedding, family photos and in-store festive playlists – almost a month before its world-famous Thanksgiving parade takes place, and just one day after the final Halloween promotion.
Starbucks launched its holiday drinks and food items, including Snowman Cookies and Iced Gingerbread Chai, on November 6, having already unveiled its festive cups. This came immediately after the coffee chain’s fall items – which were on shelves since August 26.
Retailers may be pushing deals earlier in response to tough economic times too, says Andrea Flynn, marketing professor at the University of San Diego. Americans plan to spend around $890.49 per person on holiday gifts, food, and decor, this year – slightly down from $901.99, per person in 2024, according to the National Retail Federation. Of that, $627.93 is expected to go toward presents.
“Some of this heavy promotion of the deals that will be happening is… so that people can make smarter decisions or choose the retailers that seem to be offering the better discount,” she tells The Independent.
As a result, the festive fatigue is real.
“If you’re pushing sale after sale after sale starting right after Halloween on November 1, then you’ve got your Christmas tree up and your Christmas lights… that’s a lot. It could overwhelm consumers,” says Heide Harrell, 2025 chair-elect of the Public Relations Society of America.
“It’s exhausting. You’re expected to bring something to each of these and it’s become so commercialized that it’s like, ‘why can’t it just be simple again?’”
Welch agrees. “As a decorator and interior designer, I can handle it,” he says. “But the everyday lay person will be stressed out trying to flip this decor every two weeks – that’s what it would become. It’s just too much.”
But an early rollout of Christmas decorations is intentional, says Flynn. “I think the motivation from the retailer side of things is to create that sense of urgency, like ‘Christmas is coming, there’s not a lot of time the weeks are passing. You should get started now.’
“Creating that sense that time’s ticking. The sooner they can motivate consumers to hit the stores and buy those Christmas gifts, the more it will help those bottom lines for the companies.”
A casualty of the earlier and pushier Christmas promotions is Thanksgiving itself, Flynn adds.
“There’s certainly plenty of spending that happens around that holiday related to travel, but as far as purchasing consumer goods, that’s going to be more linked to Christmas,” she says. “I think consumers are going to feel that that lovely Thanksgiving time might be drowned out a bit.”
However, the “smushing together” of holidays through fall and winter, while causing healthy arguments, also appears to have people focusing less on the “when” of holidays and more of the “why.”
E-Commerce company Etsy has seen an explosion of searches for more general, and meaningful, items.
People are “leading with emotion”, says Etsy’s trend expert Dayna Isom Johnson, who highlights that the wholesome sounding “Nona holiday” – nostalgia items and decor – has topped searches on the platform this year.
“It increasingly feels like a shift in mindset into a season of joy, rather than a singular date,” she tells The Independent. “People are no longer following rules, they’re following feelings. They’re following what makes them feel great.
“And so if that means smushing the holidays together to get more joy into their space, then they’re going to do it.”
