By the way, I don’t understand the problem. Why don’t you just cram all the ornaments onto the tree together? We have so many ornaments that we need to buy a 12 foot tree every year, and still, it’s jam-packed with a mish-mash of stuff. Radkos hang next to 1940s WW2 era plastic balls with paper hangers, which hang next to Woolworth glass balls, which hang next to the cookie ornaments I made in the second grade. (Each cookie proudly sports a bite taken out of them, courtesy of my then three year old sister Mary, who thought they might taste good.) The bitten cookies hang next to the misshapen candy canes made out of pipe cleaners and beads, which hang next to the corn ornaments Mom felt compelled to buy when we moved to Iowa, which hang next to the nursery rhyme characters that fell off my baby mobile…
You get the picture. Matching ornaments are not required! Just cram all your junk on the tree. The more stuff on there, the better. I like trees that are covered with ornaments that have nice memories–not trees that look like they were decorated by Martha Stewart. There’s something so much warmer and fuzzier about them.
Every year, Mary and I laugh about the fight we had after she tried to eat my ornaments. We’re 26 and 21 now. Maybe you and El Hubbo could cram all your ornaments and “baubles” on the tree and just enjoy the sharing of memories?
Well, thanks, dangermom, for making me cry. Those lights are the same ones that were on every tree of my childhood, reflectors and all. You’re not my sister, are you?
I’m sitting here seeing the tree in front of the picture window, with the felt skirt under it and the odd star on top. Great memories.
Do you spend large amounts of time trying to find the bad bulb when the whole tree goes dark?
My husband believes strongly in using every single strand of lights we have, as well as every single ornament we have collected since our marriage 20-odd years ago. Strangely enough, it looks pretty good. Not a Martha Stewart tree, to be sure, but a happy one, nonetheless.
Last night, as we busily shoved lights onto every nook and cranny of the tree, dear hubby was pining for a revolving tree. I said “what, those shiny aluminum ones with the three color light wheel?” At his squeals of disgust, I determined that the shiny tree was too tacky even for him.
So, my advice to you, let him put up his stuff, you put up your stuff, and if anyone makes a disparaging remark, smile serenely and say “it was all my husband’s idea>”
Tree #1 (2 ft tall) - all the Hallmark Ornaments, plain white lights, non-blinking. More of a collection display than a ‘Tree’
Tree #2 (3.5 ft tall) - all the kiddie made, home crafted ornaments - occasionally with a popcorn string, dried fruit, homemade cinnamon gingerbread men (makes the house smell wonderful), plain white lights, non-blinking. This is the Kids’ tree. They have made most of the ornaments, they decorate it, and it also has ornaments I made when I was little.
Tree #3 (5 ft tall) - all my blown glass, and German painted glass ornaments, all the crystal ornaments, burgundy metallic ribbon with gold flecks wound around the tree, plain white lights, non-blinking.
Tree skirt? Yes, my hand-quilted one I bought many years ago
Colored lights? Only on the ficus tree in the foyer
Blinking? Over my dead body.
Toppers? An angel on the tallest, Santa on the middle tree, and Marilyn Monroe on the Hallmark tree g
My husband didn’t bring any ornaments with him from home. We have made a point to purchase some new ones every year together, though. Like someone mentioned earlier, my husband let’s me do all the decorating.
My husband had one, count it, ONE Christmas tree ornament when we got married. I, on the other hand, received all of my family’s Christmas stuff when my mom decided she didn’t want to do the tree thing anymore once there were no kids in the house.
Colored lights, tiny, solid. Blinking lights are WACK.
No garland or tinsel; I got some nice strings of red wooden balls that look like strung cranberries.
No star; I always tie a big festive ribbon on the top and let the ends cascade down.
All of the miscellaneous ornaments of my childhood, and the ones we collected together as a couple.
Me too!! Bubble lights are the shit. I wonder if it is a Chicago western suburbs thing? (L.T.H.S. Class of '96)
To the OP: Unless your OVE string of lights is 500 lights long, you’ve got issues. Even 100 lights on a 6’ tree is going to look bare. Let your husband put the second string on, and save yourself the ridicule of your frinds and family. and NO blinking lights! If you need tacky lights, then get bubble lights, since they are cool.
Well, this isn’t really an issue for us, as Dr.J owns a grand total of three ornaments. A Cowardly Lion I bought him a few years ago, a silver snowflake Mom got him last year (she gets the whole family an ornament every Christmas), and a little salt-dough cat I made him last year and painted to look like his Maggie cat. The tree and all the other stuff on it, I brought into the relationship. We put the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving because I can’t bear to live any longer without it, and I take it down a day or two after Christmas because he’s sick of looking at it by then.
Our tree’s a 6-footer, and one string of lights seems to do it just fine. Of course, it’s a Charlie Brown-esque thing purchased from Kmart for $20 a few years ago, and the lights on the back show through to the front, so maybe a nicer tree that size would need more lights. I’m not really that big a fan of tree skirts, unless you don’t have enough presents piled around the thing to cover up the base. That’s the only reason I bothered to get one, and it’s just a holiday vinyl tablecloth I wrap around the bottom of the tree.
I’m sure you can work it out, but it does kind of disturb me that you seem so completely contemptuous of things that your husband seems to hold so dear.
You guys actually decorate a tree with your spouses?
I don’t think he has ever decorated a tree with us, and that’s fine by me. Means it’s all me and the heathens!
As for lights you can never have too many.
I’ve gotten a new string of lights every year since I’ve been out of my moms house. (14 years now) And sometimes two a year if someone grabs me a set knowing this is a tradition of mine.
They blink, don’t blink, trail, fade, sing, and anything else possible. And two years ago we had to go to an artificial tree and so we got a fiber optic tree with its own lights!
All my lights do have to follow a color pattern whether they are the chasing kind or not. It takes me two days or so to go through them to make sure they are perfect.
They all either go on the tree or windows. Mostly the tree, which drives people crazy. “the tree is already lit with the fibers why add more?” Because I like the pretty shiney that’s why!
Except for the ornaments with our names on them all the rest are handmade through the years by myself when I was in grade school, or the heathens who are now making their own.
I also string popcorn and cranberries every year. I’ve been told you don’t do that for an artificial tree, but, it’s my tree and it’s something I have done every year, so I’m going to continue to do it.
I start with a big bowl of popcorn and all the heathens and by the end I am the only one left stringing cause they are all frustrated or bored. I call my sister and my moms girlfriend and let them know that it is time to string the popcorn and they hang up on me! I know in my heart they love the swearing and bleeding that is the art of stringing popcorn.
Christmas trees often mean fights in our house. This is fairly normal. If my friends are any judge, once you and your spouse agree on all Christmas tree traditions, you will have to fight with your children. Even a normally sane household can be torn up with this problem.
What kind of tree is the starter. If I have to have something, I want a frazier fir or a long needled pine. The fir is soft and the long needle pine the needles are so long they don’t poke as much. I prefer the fir for the lighter needle color. He wants a spruce or scotch pine; when he remembers this he will fight to the bitter end, but sometime he forgets and I get my way with no fuss. I got my way last year because I was pregnant:D I really don’t like having a tree that much, and some years we have skipped. I reward my husband when I do get my way on that. However, somewhere along the line it was decided that I hold the party where my group of friends exchange presents, and so I needed to have a tree for Yule. Yippeee.
I prefer pastel ornamants. My husband prefers hallmark Star Trek ornaments and red and green teddy bears. He lost my grandmothers decorations. He had a horible foil star with blinking lights that I hated. It broke! Now we use my blown glass one. I like fat trees. My husband prefers tall skinny trees. He doesn’t want the tree to interfere with the traffic pattern in the house. I think it goes right in front of the living room window and if it interferes with the traffic pattern, that just means it will get taken down in a timely manner. Tinsel is one thing I won’t give in on. He can chose the type, but it does not get thrown at the tree in large bunches under threat of me vacuuming the tree. The lights vary. He thinks that the more lights the better. One year when we had an artificial tree, he got a friend to put on 35 strings of lights on a six foot tree. I don’t like that many, but I am not opposed to blinking lights. Last year we had several one color strings arranged in rainbow order: pink, fushia, purple, blue violet, blue, teal, green. (IIRC) This year he gets his way on lights barring a veto from KellyM.
Your best bet is to pick odd or even years to get you way in and then remember which it was. Compromise on what is possible to do so on.
We always had a HUGE tree, at least 8 foot (we had 9 foot ceilings). The tree had about 8 - 10 strings of lights on it, all mulitcolored. Each string on a different blinker switch with a different periodicity. In the evenings we would put seasonal music on the Hi Fi and turn off all the lights and wait for all the strings to synchronize.
This is the first Christmas for my honey and me. So far we haven’t disagreed on much. He doesn’t have very many ornaments, and I have tons. It only took us about 1/2 an hour to pick out a tree (he came with me to pick out the tree!) He also bought me an ornament, a funny little Santa that is adorable. And he bought a bobble-head Santa for the mantel! It is so cool.
For those of you who don’t know, I lost my husband to heart disease about a year ago. Even before he was sick, he never liked to do anything like shop for the tree, decorate, or “play in any reindeer games.” He was just a lump.
My new boyfriend is very animated, and likes to go and do lots of things (besides Christmasy stuff.) It is so much fun, and so VERY less stressful to have someone to share all the joy of this season.
I say pile on all the ornaments, and lights and icicles and candy canes—the gaudier the better!
Those lights are the same ones that were on every tree of my childhood, reflectors and all. You’re not my sister, are you?
I call my sister and my moms girlfriend and let them know that it is time to string the popcorn and they hang up on me! I know in my heart they love the swearing and bleeding that is the art of stringing popcorn.