How early is too early to start decorating for Christmas?

Christmas is the merriest time of year, but how early is too early to hang the stockings and don the Santa hat?

On one side of the argument, you have the Christmas fanatics, the ones who are playing carols in October and putting the tree up the second it hits midnight on October 31.

But on the other hand, you have the festive season believers, the people who still enjoy Christmas but think there is a right time and a wrong time – the right time being December 1 to 25 and the wrong time being any date outside of that range.

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And then you have the straight up Grinches, the ones who couldn't care less about hanging the lights and decorating the tree and simply want the whole merry season to be over before it's even begun. 

But the real question is, who is right?

Well, technically everyone is entitled to their own opinion yes, but when is the societally correct time to start decorating for Christmas?

To help answer that question, we've polled our readers to see when they prefer to put the tree up, and their answers might surprise you. 

The Christmas fanatics only accounted for about 10 per cent of our poll, with readers saying they have either already started decorating, are waiting until later in the month, or aren't planning to start until November. 

The majority of respondents fell into the category of festive season believers.

27 per cent seem to love a tradition, saying their decorations go up on December first to mark the start of the merriest time of the year. 

Whereas 32 per cent appear to be a bit more casual about it, declaring that their decorations will go up sometime after December 1st. 

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The other 31 per cent of respondents said they don't actually like to decorate for Christmas.

It's important to remember that there are plenty of people who don't celebrate Christmas, whether it be for personal, religious or other reasons.

However to those who do celebrate Christmas but prefer not to decorate, that's fine we can respect that. But we do hope there's at least a tree, otherwise how does Santa know where to leave the presents?