When do you put up Christmas lights?

I firmly oppose having Xmas decorations before Thanksgiving. I strongly believe in celebrating one holiday at a time.

My preference is to wait until the beginning of December. But I would not look askance at anyone who decorated the day after Thanksgiving.

Somewhat unrelated but also somewhat related: I also think that stores should not be open on Thanksgiving Day. Black Friday sales should start no sooner than normal business hours Friday morning.

Yep, I'm one of the "extreme" holiday decorators. Halloween display goes up Oct 1 and comes down Nov 1. Nothing scary or bloody but lit up so the International Space Station can see it.

Then the Thanksgiving blow up turkeys go up, one 8 ft and 3 baby turkeys at 3 feet. The signage changes every year, this year's theme was Eat Mor Befe. That comes down the Saturday after Thanksgiving and gives us prep time for the holidays.

This year is Snowpeople. More like an army though. They start snow fights with passers-by. Mechanical arms shoot a small amount of fake snow when someone walks by & triggers it. Mostly kids walking to school but dog walkers get in on it too.

It's fun. A lot of work though.

I decorated my Christmas tree the other day.

I personally don't. The flashing annoys me

Flashing lights not necessary. But I get your fair point.

You put Xmas lights up before St Swithen's Day?!? I thought you were a one holiday sort of fellow.

He is our parish saint, buried in Winchester Cathedral.

The legend that says if it rains on St Swithun's day it will rain for 40 days only applies if it rains on his grave.

Clever. So it never rains on his grave.

We have a cat. He hasn't tolerated a decorated tree in eight years.

Beats me. I've never heard of St Swithen.

Clearly, it's Swithun.

Still never heard of him (or her).

I'm not surprised.

Ok, how about St Crispins Day?



Maybe St. Dogfan.

That has to be the worst ever performance.

That has always brought a tear to my eye, even when it's just the written word.

Not Branagh though, nothing at all.

I've been reading Bernard Cornwell's grail quest books and Azincourt, all about the 100 years war.

He decided on Azincourt instead of Agincourt, not because he preferred the French spelling but because two academic books called Agincourt had just come out and he didn't want his novel being confused with them.

The Shakespeare play is a load of royalist/aristocratic propaganda. The siege of Harfleur is one scene, resolved v quickly with honourable surrender.

It lasted a long time, about of the English army died of dysentery and when the town was taken it was ethnically cleansed, filled with English and most of the French expelled.

Henry V tried to do what Edward III did before, march his army to English occupied Calais as an insult to the French crown, that was it.

Unfortunately the French got wind of it and blocked crossings across the Seine they had to march much further south, and when they met at Agincourt the French army blocked the way to Calais.

The biggest omission was the longbow, the war bows used had 120lb pull, (modern Olympic bows are 40lb,) and were so big that you had to pull them back behind your ear.

It meant they could not be aimed by looking down the arrow, and so aiming took lots of practice. It took 10 years to master one starting from boyhood, and the physical strength necessary to pull the bow permanently changed the skeleton.

The archers on The Mary Rose are easily distinguishable from other mariners.

The Crossbow had a longer range but it took ten times as long to load meaning after the first shot of bolts the archers could easily get in range and start firing 10 arrows for every bolt.

And they pierced plate armour.

Bad performance, great speech.

I've never heard of either. Sorry.

For me it's clear sailing from Thanksgiving to Xmas.

There's a winter solstice just before Xmas, but it's not really a holiday.

Your all encompassing ignorance is a matter of public record.

You just stick to the seven things you know and leave it at that.

Better watch out, a lot of religions celebrate Solstice. Christmas is a Solstice observance - rebirth and new life out of chaos and darkest, longest winter.