Christmas lights on Grafton Street?

But it's still 10 weeks to Christmas!!

Twitter has been alight (sorry) with news that Christmas lights were switched on in and around Grafton Street this week.

Well, feel free to get into the Christmas spirit a little early (we are), but actually they won’t be officially turned on until November 13.

Pic: tweetymonkey/Twitter

What happened this week was the good people at Dublin City’s Business Improvement District (Dublin City Bids for short) are being super-organised and getting the lights up and tested before the big, official switch-on event in mid-November.

So you’ll see a little twinkle here and a little twinkle there in advance of that, but will have to wait a bit (way past Halloween anyway, which is only right and proper) for the full lit-up extravaganza.

As we’re at it, we’re happy to let you know for your diary that Bids are also responsible for the Henry Street lights, and they’ll be tumed on on November 16. In fact, Bids are responsible for a LOT of Christmas cheer in Dublin every year, erecting lights on 30 city-centre streets in total. This week’s tests in the streets off Grafton Street were only the start of it.

“It takes a lot of work to get so many lights in place and ready for the launch of Dublin at Christmas so we start putting them up now and test them as they've been in storage all year,” a spokesman told us. “We can only work at night too so that adds challenges of getting them ready.”

Dublin City Council will turn on the Christmas lights on O'Connell Street on November 30 and the lights on the tree in Smithfield will be turned on on December 4.

Just as well too, as reactions to any early turning-on-of lights would be mixed going by the tweets this week, with some admitting to being “seriously torn”.

Christmas lights going up around Grafton Street 🙈 #EnjoyYourCity pic.twitter.com/fGtuMz2Tf6

— Timi Ogunyemi 🇮🇪🇳🇬🇵🇸 (@tweetymonkey) October 14, 2014

Now you'll want to whisper this one, bit it looks like the Christmas lights are going up around Grafton Street 󾍔 #EnjoyYourCity

— Ground Control (@Groundcntrl) October 14, 2014

THEY ARE PUTTING CHRISTMAS LIGHTS UP ON GRAFTON STREET pic.twitter.com/UFEbvwereM

— Killian (@krjod) October 14, 2014

Rumour has it the Christmas lights are going up on Grafton Street! Think they should wait until after Halloween!

— Tan Cosy (@Tancosy) October 14, 2014

Happy almost-Christmas!