When to Take Down Christmas Trees, and When to Put Them Up

When to take down Christmas trees

When to take down Christmas trees is a yearly family standoff. One person wants the living room back on December 26; another would keep the lights up until February. There is a traditional answer, a safety answer for real trees and a practical answer for everyone else, and they mostly point to the same week.

The short version: early January for most homes, and sooner for any real tree that has gone dry. The start date is its own fight, and we settle that below too.

The traditional answer: Twelfth Night and Epiphany

Christian tradition counts twelve days of Christmas, running from Christmas Day into early January. Twelfth Night falls on January 5 or 6, depending on whether you start counting on Christmas Day or the day after, and Epiphany on January 6 closes the season. The Church of England keeps Twelfth Night on January 5.

There is even a superstition to enforce it. In English-speaking countries, taking decorations down before Twelfth Night is said to be unlucky, and so is leaving them up after it. Go back further, to medieval and Tudor England, and the season ran all the way to Candlemas on February 2, which is the best historical cover the leave-it-up side will ever find.

The verdict

What it sounds like

The American answer: after New Year's

In the US, the holiday season is generally seen as ending after New Year's Day, earlier than the church calendar. That makes the first weekend of January a natural take-down window: school is back, the guests are gone, and nobody wants to vacuum pine needles in February.

Families that celebrate Three Kings Day, another name for Epiphany on January 6, have a built-in deadline, and in many places that is exactly when decorations are put away. If your household mixes traditions, that overlap is a gift.

When to put up Christmas decorations

The other half of the argument is the start date. Holiday shopping traditionally kicks off the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and for many American homes so do the decorations. Tim O'Connor, executive director of the National Christmas Tree Association, a trade group for farm-grown trees, told FOX in 2023 that the best time to put up a real tree is right after Thanksgiving and that anything earlier is a bit early. In an informal 2021 Axios Local reader poll cited in the same report, 55 percent picked November after Thanksgiving.

The early November crowd has a point too. Decorations make people happy, an artificial tree does not dry out, and stores have been pushing the season earlier for decades, a trend nicknamed Christmas creep since the mid-1980s. For a real tree, though, an early start means a tree that has been drying out for weeks by the time Christmas arrives.

Why real trees need to come down sooner

Fire safety is the one part of this debate that is not a matter of taste. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), US fire departments responded to an average of 160 home fires per year that started with Christmas trees from 2016 to 2020, and 30 percent of Christmas tree fires were in January. As trees dry out, they become more and more flammable.

In a live burn test by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, cited by NFPA, a dried-out tree reached flashover in less than a minute, while a well-watered tree burned much more slowly. The US Fire Administration's advice is to water a real tree every day, keep it at least 3 feet from heat sources such as fireplaces, radiators, space heaters, candles and heat vents, and get rid of it after Christmas or when it is dry.

Artificial trees do not dry out, but lights and wiring play a big part in tree fires, so the Fire Administration also says to inspect light strands every year and throw out any with frayed or pinched wires.

A fair schedule families can agree on

Most families do not need a winner; they need a calendar. This one respects tradition, safety and the person who has to vacuum:

• Put up: the weekend after Thanksgiving, or the one after. Earlier is fine for an artificial tree and indoor decorations.
• Real tree: water it every day. If it looks or feels dry, it comes down, whatever the date.
• Take down: by January 6, Epiphany, or the first weekend after New Year's Day if that is easier.
• The holdout clause: one small, safe decoration, such as a wreath or a string of battery lights, can stay until Candlemas on February 2 for whoever loves the season most.

The ruling

Take the Christmas tree down by Epiphany, January 6, or the first weekend after New Year's, and take a real tree down sooner if it has dried out. Put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving. This is not picking the midpoint between two dates, which would be the middle ground fallacy; tradition and fire safety independently land in early January.

If the fight is really two families' traditions colliding, that is a bigger conversation, and our guides to arguments with parents and conflict resolution strategies can help. Still split? Let the argument judge weigh both sides.