Post anything about Christmas here.

I'll start with a couple of question's.

Is there an "official" date for putting up the Christmas tree?

When do the twelve days of Christmas start?

Youve answered your question there....the 12 days start 12 days before xmas and the traditional time for putting your tree up is 12 days before and taking it down 12 days after

Mines is up already though

I have never heard the expression "twelve days of Christmas" but I am curious to find out...

About the official date to put up a Christmas three: Where I come from you are supposed to put it up on the 24th, spending the afternoon to decorate it and get rid of it on 6th of January. But quite frankly I broke with that tradition as soon as I moved out. So I get one in the first week of December.

I wonder if anybody knows the tradition of Nicolaus on the 6th of December where you put out your shoes the night before (don't forget to clean them which is for some people the only occasion to do that for the entire year ) and in the morning you find sweets in them..

If I put my shoes out, the sweets would have disentegrated/melted by morning!!!!

Yep - was a great thing especially as a kid!

Maybe it is the compensation for not having the "morning surprise" on the 25th as in Germany the tradition is that Santa Clause comes in the evening of the 24th in person. And quite frankly I don't know any child that isn't intimidated by this big white bearded bloke as you not only have to face him, you also have to recite a Christmas poem and justify for the naughtiness you did in the past year before getting handed the present out...

Well - the guessing who played the Santa Claus afterwards was always good. I remember a very fun drunk Santa Claus once(they tested the Chritmas punch all afternoon ) and one Christmas I unmasked Santa by ripping off his faked beard ...

If we put our shoes out they'll get stolen

She gets salmon at Christmas