Decorating for the Holidays – There are Rules!

And so, the 2026 holiday season begins. Stores have had Halloween decorations up since July. Christmas decorations started appearing in late July and early August and are in full swing now.

I’m the holiday decorator in our household… big surprise! And because I do the decorating (and no one else much cares), I’ve established a set of rules for decorating. Of course, I’m the only one who has to follow them, so they can be altered or modified at will.

For instance, Halloween decorations cannot go up until at least October 1st and MUST come down on November 1st so that Thanksgiving decorations can go up. Then, of course, Thanksgiving adornments and anything ‘fallish’ need to be removed no later than December 1st, so that we can set up the tree and decorate for the Christmas season. If I’m home for Thanksgiving (which we won’t be this year), I begin decorating the day after Thanksgiving. I carefully pack away all the Christmas decorations on New Year’s Day and then wait impatiently for February 1st so I can add some color to an otherwise dull-looking house.

It would be more convenient if there were only one holiday per month every month throughout the year, and it fell at the end of the month so the decorations would be appropriate throughout an entire month, but it doesn’t work out that way. Valentine’s Day is February 14th, and St. Patrick’s Day is March 17th, Spring is usually March 20th, and Easter varies every year, so either decorations stay up too long, have to come down too quickly, overlap (heaven forbid!), or the house is ‘undecorated’ for a few weeks. Boring!

I just dragged out all the Halloween bins from the back of the closet and began this year’s decorating. I try to buy a few new things each year and recycle others that are beyond their ‘best by’ dates. Savers, Goodwill, and other thrift stores are good options for buying new and recycling old. I also bought some stuff after Halloween last year to take advantage of the hefty discounts. This year, it’s like opening a surprise box with new decorations inside.

We don’t do much outside decorating… a few wraiths hanging from the junipers out front and a fuzzy spider or two on the lantana. Blah! Our neighbor down the street goes all out and actually closes off the cul-de-sac in his area and decorates not only his yard, but all the adjoining yards. It’s quite the spectacle.

There’s a ‘The Witch Is In” wreath hanging on the front door, and we have a ceramic Jack-o-Lantern out front that I illuminate on Halloween night to show trick-or-treaters the path to our door. Each year, we seem to have fewer and fewer trick-or-treaters knocking on our door, but it seems more and more people decorate for the holiday. Capital One Shopping states that “Consumers in the U.S. are projected to spend about $4.3 billion on Halloween decorations in 2026.” That doesn’t include another $5 billion in candy, cards, and costumes. Yikes… that’s a lot of dollars!

So, do you decorate for Halloween? What about the other holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah, Valentine’s Day, St. Pat’s, Easter, or 4th of July? If I’m home, I decorate for them all, and you can rest assured, they come down right on schedule.