holiday peer pressure

I'm feeling a little like I'm a slacker on the holiday stuff. I keep reminding myself we still have five days of November left... it just feels later because Thanksgiving was early this year, right? Right?
It seems everyone's blogs are talking about having their trees up and everything all decorated... I looked out my front windows last night and in every house I could see, there was a brightly lit Christmas tree in every living room... everybody had their lights up outside like before Thanksgiving... and the kicker was yesterday when Savannah asked me oh so sadly how come our house isn't Christmassy yet.

Why do I feel like a total scrooge for not having had everything up by the 24th of November?? I can't believe as much as I love the Christmas season and everything that goes along with it (I'm usually the one who can't wait to get all the stuff going) but yet this year I feel like I'm the one behind and being rushed into the holiday. What is wrong with me?!
I have pulled the boxes out downstairs and have slowly been bringing decorations up this week. Like I said before, we are planning on doing the outside lights this weekend, and then getting our tree the following weekend. I thought about doing the tree this coming weekend, (I'm feeling the peer pressure), but the weather forecast is rain and snow. So maybe not.

We go out and get a real tree every year... what can I say, we're from Oregon. Back there everyone has real trees... pretty much only people who are allergic or elderly have fake trees in the Northwest. We grew up Christmas tree "hunting" and that's always been a major part of our holiday traditions. Traipsing around the fields together giddy with anticipation of finding that "perfect" tree. Getting it home and getting it in and decorating it. It's fun to have a different tree every year... many of our Christmases got labeled that way... the year we had the skinny tree, the one that was too tall, the short fat one, the one that kept falling over. And that fresh citrusy smell... mmmm. Getting the Christmas tree was honestly my very favorite part of Christmas growing up. It'd odd to go from that to being in the midwest where the majority of trees in living rooms are synthetic. And there's not many tree farms. Back home you drive 10 minutes out of the city and you have dozens of farms to choose from down every back road! Here, people look at you like you're crazy, choosing to go out in the cold and cut down a tree. Too much hassle, too much mess they all say. I say it's not Christmas without it.

Anyway, we're probably not getting ours for another week and a half, and right now that is crazily feeling like forever away. We're having our big New Years Celebration Dinner with all our friends again this year and I want the tree to still be fresh(ish) and pretty for the week after Christmas, so I'm afraid to get it too early. Besides, growing up we always went the second weekend in December or the one that was closest to my sister's and my birthdays (the 9th and 10th), so to do it before December even starts just seems way too early to me. But with the rush of holiday stuff around us, I'm starting to feel like I'm depriving my children or something. You should have heard the way Savannah asked me about being the only ones without a tree up last night... it reminded me of being in the sixth grade and being the only girl in my class without an Esprit bag!!

So. Just because I'm curious (and I need distraction from my tree-less living room) here are a couple of polls for you all...

and


Any other comments? Any relief or encouragement for the peer pressure??
By the way, I love that Amy shared that her and her husband go on a Christmas tree "weekend away" to get their tree up in Vermont every year. How fun of a tradition is that?!
Any one else have any tree related traditions?