Anthony Hawwa’s home Christmas light display, featuring 7,000 bulbs, might be more extravagant than most but, when it comes to the date of taking them down, he’s a proud traditionalist. He makes sure everything is boxed up and put away just after 7 January, the date Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas, every year.
“I find it wild that some people take their decorations down on Boxing Day,” says the freelance TV producer, whose annual light shows have made him something of a local celebrity on his street. For the past five years, Hawwa has gone all-out on decorating his two-bedroom cottage in Sydney. Think thousands of LED lights programmed to a carefully selected list of Christmas songs, all controlled by a set of buttons on the fence outside. “The kids in the street love it – every night before bedtime they come and stand at the front fence, pressing all the buttons. One of the kids next door basically made himself the project manager, at one point,” he says.
The setup process takes weeks but Hawwa makes sure his lights are on by 1 December. He says he can’t see the point of undoing all his hard efforts until that first week of January, given how many social events tend to take place in the first few days of the new year.
It depends on your tradition
Sydney architect Georgina Wilson takes a different approach, saying she likes to have her decorations down by 31 December. It sets the tone for a “calm, uncluttered start to the year” – despite her friends teasing her about it. Stacey Cabot from Brisbane says she and her four adult sons often take theirs down as early as 26 December. “It helps that the Boxing Day [cricket] test is on, and the TV and tree are in close proximity,” she says.
Wilson and Cabot are not alone in their rush for a post-Christmas cleanse. Last year, Halle Simons racked up 106,000 likes on TikTok when she broadcast herself taking down her decorations on 27 December, saying she grows tired of the “clutter” when the big day is over. “Ours went down today too”, “so glad it’s not just me”, and “I did it at 8pm on Christmas [Day]” were among the comments on her video.
Jo Hayes, founder of EtiquetteExpert.org, says that in the Christian calendar she follows at home, the period until 24 December is technically advent, not Christmas, so her view is that celebrating the full 12-day Christmas period means keeping decor up until 6 January. She personally believes any time before then is too early but any time beyond the second week of January is too late. There’s a superstitious element to this logic – some traditions suggest leaving decorations up past the 12th night of Christmas brings bad luck – but it’s practical, too.
Daniel Vasilevski, an electrician based in Sydney, points out that Christmas is often one of the sunniest times of the year in Australia. “Removing lights before mid-January will ensure the cables and fittings are not damaged by the UV rays, which may compromise the insulation and reduce their duration of operation,” he says.
Some Australians don’t seem to mind a few sunburned cables. Kerry Morrison, owner of online party shop Christmas and More, keeps her tree up until mid-January to “drag Christmas out for as long as possible” – she’d leave it there all year if her husband was on board. Hawwa says he regularly spots festive lights up in homes as late in the year as Valentine’s Day, and cleaning firm founder Jason Shipway says February is positively early compared with some of his clients in homes across Perth. Shipway knows families who keep their decorations up until March, while others – his grandparents included – leave their tree up all year round, though they do eventually remove the decorations. “I think some people just can’t be hassled with taking it all down,” he says.
How to pack your decorations away
When you do get around to taking down the tinsel, how can you avoid tying yourself up in knots?
Both the January traditionalists and new-year-reset types agree you need to be as organised as possible, as a present to your future self.
“Rushing to stuff the decor, lights and ornaments away will likely lead to tangling and smashing,” says Hayes, who likes to use the Christmas pack-up as a chance to pause and be mindful. “As I’m pulling down the decor, I like to take some time to reflect on the joy and events of the past few weeks – the Christmas celebrations, the social gatherings, the essence of what Christmas 2025 was all about.”
Morrison follows a similar ritual. She and her family make a tradition out of the putting up of Christmas decorations every November – why not do the same thing in reverse come January? “In our house, we put on Santa hats and music and make a big deal of it – it helps to combat the post-Christmas blues,” she says.
Melbourne-based social media creator Jessica Ricci likes to listen to Christmas hits and make an afternoon of it, too – though, as a self-confessed organisation freak, she says she would probably enjoy the process regardless.
Cabot’s style is more of a military exercise. She, her husband and four sons put their decorations into labelled plastic tubs, wrap tinsel around coat hangers and carefully cushion their lights before putting the tree away in its bag. She’ll throw a few moisture absorbers into the boxes, too, to prevent ornaments from going mouldy.
Cabot codes her boxes by colour – silver and gold decorations in one, yellow and red in another, and so on – while Wilson and Vasilevski swear by labels to save yourself digging through boxes for specific ornaments the following year. “I wrap fairy lights neatly around a spool or a piece of cardboard, and use plenty of tissue paper for delicate ornaments,” Wilson says. “Also check all the strands and change broken bulbs before storing – it’ll save hours of guesswork and electrical faults next year,” Vasilevski says.
Hawwa might not look forward to the take-down like Ricci or Morrison but he knows being hyper-methodical is his only option. His set-up involves hundreds of strips of LED lights custom-made for different pillars, windows and doors around the house, all run off a computer with 16 different ports. Sure, creating layout documents and fixing broken LEDs can be tedious. And yes, the children next door get a little sad when they realise Christmas is over but he’ll thank himself next November. “Every year I think I’ll remember the set-up, and every year I have to re-learn it,” he says.
While Hawwa leaves his lights on until early January, he laughs at his neighbours’ suggestions that he keep the lights on year-round. Although if he did, he wouldn’t need to waste time taking them down again.
