WHEN DOES YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE GO UP AND A TRAIN GO UNDER IT.

TWO WEEKS BEFORE AND NEVER.  THE TRAINS STAY IN THE BASEMENT. ALSO TOO BUSY WITH TRAINS AT THE CLUB AROUND HOLIDAYS. iT ACTUALLY GIVES ME A BETTER PERSPECTIVE ON THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS WITHOUT TRAINS

Stephen,

The last few years we have done the same as you.  If not Thanksgiving day, at least that weekend.  As usual, just Saturday, while I was raking mountains of leaves, my wife mentioned to me I should get the lights up outside soon before it gets too cold.  

I mentioned on another thread that I am going to put up a table for trains and a village of lit ceramic buildings my wife inherited from her grandmother in the bedroom our younger daughter recently vacated when she got married.  We are going to try to share the room as a guest room and joint hobby room until our other daughter moves out, and I will build my permanent layout in her basement art studio.

Since we have had this cute little terrier mix the last 4 or 5 years, I haven't been able to run trains under the tree.  I can put them there, but not run them, or the dog barks and barks then shoves the locomotive off the track.

The tree goes up sometime between thanksgiving and Christmas, whenever I get around to it, .  The train goes under as soon as the tree is decorated (Don't want it getting stepped on while putting stuff on the tree.).

We usually start decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving. The tree usually goes up the first few days of December (first weekend we host a birthday), and the train immediately follows. This will only be the third Christmas that my family and I will have a train around our tree.

The MTH starter set I bought three years ago started it all.......

The tree goes up Thanksgiving weekend.  The Holiday layout does not go under the tree due to two new lab puppies that would eat everything and their 115 pound predecessor that would have done the same.   It has typically gone in the room just behind the tree on folding card tables.  I also usually put up exterior lights the weekend after Halloween (this weekend!) before it gets too cold.  Just wait to turn them on until Thanksgiving weekend. 

Uh, it's not even Halloween yet.

First week of November I start all decorations. The tree goes up first with about 1000 ornaments and 1000 lights. Then the trains around the tree. Next is the decorations and lights around the house. 

All decorations will be done by Thanksgiving. This gives me the entire month before Christmas to visit friends, train layouts And many other things. 

I have done this for years and it works very well. 

Haven't put a train around the tree in a number of years - too much of a pain in the @$$ to keep running. Plus, my Christmas layout is somewhere in the county landfill and I don't have much of an interest in building another one. 

Usually the Christmas tree goes up about 1 week - 10 days before Christmas but likely no tree this year. 

We will have the Christmas Tree up Thanksgiving Day Week and before Thanksgiving Day so that we can enjoy it without a push of having to get it done over the long weekend. The train will also go under the tree at that time.

We have followed Sante Fe Jim's suggestion for many years to get the outside lights done before it gets really cold here in Maine.

We always look forward to this wonderful time of the year. To us, trains and Christmas go together very well.

That's the order:

1. Christmas tree
2. Train

i agree.......i didnt find any holiday on the calender for" x-mas"......jim

The Boss allows me to bring the Christmas platform up a few days after Thanksgiving, but I usually wait till the calendar says December. We cut our tree down at a local farm, and lasts well after Christmas. She hates the grey overcast and dreary look of Winter, so she really enjoys the Christmas decorations, and doesn't mind the train.But I make sure to check, don't want to wear out their welcome, and she'd rather have me playing with them in the living room instead of being in the basement most of the winter.

My wife does the tree and all the decorations, she's the ornament and light collector so that's her department. That happens whenever she feels like doing it all, usually sometime after Thanksgiving. The trains stay in the basement. Maybe one year we will get some type of holiday ready to run set and try it out under the tree? Of course, that will also be up to her, she also likes Z-scale size trains.

My Christmas layout outgrew the tree and is now on public display each year (starting at the end of November), however our tree usually goes up sometime after thanksgiving and a train of some sort follows as soon as the tree is decorated (easier to decorate without tripping on trains).  Exterior lights go up the week of Thanksgiving, usually the day of our local thanksgiving parade.

I don't put a train under the tree, the trains are always "up" in the basement.  I do put a couple of small Christmas trees on the layout, so the 1/48 people can properly celebrate the holiday.

I do have the Lionel 2026 that Santa brought me in 1951 on the coffee table, pulling a couple of Lionel silver 027 passenger cars.  But it's a permanent guest, and never gets put away.

We don't put out any Christmas decorations until the 1st of December, and the tree doesn't go up till about two weeks before the holiday.  Around here at least, you can always tell the people who put their trees up right after Thanksgiving, because their dry, dead trees are always stuck right outside beside the garbage cans -- the day after Christmas.

Our tree is artificial, and it stays up until well after New Year's.

We also put up an artificial tree.

I will start the week after Thanksgiving getting the tree down from the attic.  It grows there all year until the holiday season arrives.  It is growing on top of the Christmas trains.  The next step it to haul the Christmas trains down from the attic.  It takes a day to set up everything but two weeks to haul everything down the stairs.  Getting it all back into the attic at the end of the season is another challenge.

Joe

Usually the first weekend in December the tree goes up along with the outside decorations.

We have an artificial tree so the tree will stay up until late January.

My trains are in the basement but the scenery is the Christmas Season everyday, except for a few cob webs and dust bunnies that seem to show up unannounced in the off season of train operating and layout fun.

I agree with Passenger Train Collector, Christmas and trains go very well together.

Like Peanut Butter and Jelly!!!

Mark Strittmatter

TCA #14-69917

Indiana PA.

The day after Thanksgiving, the 6' tree on a elevated train layout goes up in the dining room. Two days later the 9' tree with a floor layout goes up in the living room. This is THE tree, which takes me 8 hours to just put the ornaments on it. Next comes the rest of the house, then outside (which only takes a day). Our house was built in 1889, and Christmas seems made for it. Anyone in the Philadelphia area is more than welcome to visit. All it takes is a email.