When should you put up Christmas decorations?

The first day of Advent, which is Sunday 29 November in 2026 and 28 November in 2027. The Church of England counts Advent as the four Sundays before Christmas Day, and Ideal Home gives the first of them as the day decorations traditionally go up. The same article says there is no set time.

The two Church of England pages we checked give the date, not advice on decorating: they describe church decorations in Advent as simple and sparse. Older custom was different. English Heritage notes that medieval households put their greenery up on Christmas Eve itself.

In the first two weeks of December. In a YouGov survey published on 28 November 2025, 35% of Britons said they usually put their decorations up in the first week of December and 22% in the week after: 57% together, by our sum.

In 2026 that makes the traditional date an early one. Advent Sunday falls in November, when 10% of Britons decorate, and only 14% think it acceptable to decorate at home before the first week of December. 42% say the start of December is the right time.

A cut tree, about four weeks before it comes down; a tree in a pot, the weekend before Christmas. The Royal Horticultural Society says that with care a cut tree should last about four weeks; a sales manager at Christmas Tree World, quoted by Ideal Home, says it can last four to six. On the shorter figure, a tree that comes down on 5 January goes up on 8 December, and one brought in on Advent Sunday 2026 reaches four weeks on 27 December.

Care, according to the RHS, means sawing 2.5cm off the base, standing the tree in water, checking the water daily and keeping it away from a fire or radiator. For a living tree in a pot the RHS advises a shorter stay: in as late as possible, ideally the weekend before Christmas, and indoors no longer than 12 days, guided by how the tree looks. From the weekend of 19 and 20 December 2026, that means back outside by New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

By Twelfth Night. YouGov gives that as 5 January and English Heritage as around 6 January, the day the Church of England's twelve days of Christmas end with the Epiphany. In the YouGov survey, 56% of those who decorate take everything down between New Year and Twelfth Night and 22% before New Year: 78% by 5 January, by our sum.

English Heritage sees no real reason to hurry. It calls the belief that it is bad luck to leave decorations up a modern invention: in medieval England they stayed up until Candlemas, on 2 February.