Connecticut

Too Early for Christmas Decorations? Holiday Timing Impacting Traditions

It’s been six years since Thanksgiving has fallen so late in the month, and it’s making Connecticut residents question when it’s appropriate to get in the Christmas spirit.

Tricia Staley of Norwich says she won’t decorate her Christmas tree until Thanksgiving weekend.

“It’s a shorter amount of time, so it’ll be more frantic, more things going on in less time. More things to do in a shorter period of time, but we’ll make it work.”

In Hartford Jose Ramos is already spreading Christmas cheer.

“I came down to take care of my father, my mom passed away this year, so here we are and we still got the spirit up. Nothing’s going to bring us down,” Ramos said.

Ramos has been building up his collection of Christmas decorations after last season sales.

He moved back to the states with just the basics one year ago.

“In Puerto Rico we do decorate since probably since September, especially us that we couldn’t decorate last year since we he did live the hurricane in Puerto Rico, so this is part of it.”

After a rough couple of months, Ramos decided to decorate every corner of his home to honor his Christmas-loving father, who died last month.

“I wasn’t going to put anything up, but it’s Christmas, time to celebrate, family time,” Ramos said.

Finding the perfect Christmas tree at the Dzen Tree Farm has been a popular pastime for many families for decades.

“To us, it’s the family traditions, we’re four generations deep in our farming family and some of our customers are four generations deep in coming to see us,” Field Operations Manager Dan Dzen said.

The tree farm is doing things differently because of the Thanksgiving delay.

“This is the first time in our over 50 years of growing Connecticut trees that we’ve opened before Thanksgiving, but if we look at retail trends as a whole everything is earlier. Now we’re talking about Christmas right after Halloween, so we’ve got to keep up with the trends a little bit,” Dzen said.

The Dzen Tree Farm is hoping to start spreading Christmas cheer this weekend.

“To us the money doesn’t matter, it’s about the traditions and the history and heritage,” Dzen said.

Lake Compounce in Bristol celebrated the Christmas season with their tree lighting ceremony Friday. The usually begin the festivities on Black Friday every year, but they moved it up this year too.

For those who want to get through their Thanksgiving meal first, Christmas will come quickly.

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