My family goes for the “memory” tree style as well. Colored lights, and then every one has ornaments they have to put up. We do this as a family, since I have gone to college my parents don’t decorate the tree until I get home.
I have to put up my baby’s first Christmas ornament, and a pile of clear or frosted glass ornaments. They are mine, you see. (I like the frosted ones to hang in front of a light so they glow different colors)
Its not a particularly classy end product but we like it. Hanging them up together is a riot. Fights break out over prime spots. Bribes are offered and accepted. People re-organise other’s ornaments and are caught. Mom remids us to hang the breakble stuff high and we choose sacraficial victims. (we also have two cats…we hang two cheap box o balls ornaments low for them to kill and try to keep everything important higher up…not that it helps)
a package arrives from jackson and perkins. ceremonial package dance is performed. it is opened on beethoven’s birthday. the special “tree” table is set up. while ludwig’s music thunders the tree is released from the box and placed on the table. the cord is unrolled and plugged in…ooooohhhhh, aaaahhhh. then wrapping of presents and humming, drinking eggnog and eating ben and jerrys… then just sitting back humming and watching the lights blink.
We have thirty years of ornaments (and lights and tinsel and star on top) on our tree, every year. Eclectic is being diplomatic about it. Stuff my brother and I made in cub and boy scouts, in school, at craft camp; ornaments we got as gifts from our teachers, relatives, or friends; commemorative ornaments that go back to 197X sometime; ornaments that my grandmother gave my mom on my parents’ first Christmas together; five different colors of tinsel from various periods of the past three decades; a tacky-looking (but immensely precious to us) star made of plastic with silver tinsel and holed for tree lights that was given to my parents by my grandparents; a creche that was immensely gorgeous when it was new (it’s at least thirty years old now) but still important and beautiful to us; old undertree houses that (again) were given to my parents by my late grandparents; and the new addition (within the last six years, and growing annually), my mother’s animatronic Christmas figure collection, scattered through the living room (rocking-horse Mickey by the TV, singing Santa beside the tree, toy-making Santa and toy-making elf on the porch in the window, three little carolers on shoebox-top shelves tacked to the stair bannister).
It looks like the ultimate in Christmas kitsch, but I wouldn’t trade a single light or ornament for a million dollars. It’s basically my lifetime in Christmas decorations. Lovely…absolutely wonderful.
No real theme with ours.
We have a few old ornaments that go back to my grandparents. A couple of candle holder things that go way back. A couple of ornaments that were on our tree when I was a kid. A couple of walnuts sprayed with white wax that once looked like snow.Mom told my wife I made them.I don’t think so but WTH.Lots of Norman Rockwells.And my wifes newest.A Pickle. I guess it is a German tradition.My Paternal Grandfather was supposed to be German but I never knew him. She is really reaching to start this tradition. She is Irish and I’m 1/2 Polish 1/4 Norwegian and 1/4 german.
Merry Christmas Everyone
Zumba The Cat– I’m jealous. Our ceiling isn’t high enough for a 9-foot tree. If we had one, the top foot or so of it would be bending against the ceiling! But all those lights sound pretty. I’ve always wanted to have a tree like that.
Tansu– The gold, copper, and amber combination sounds very nice. Those colors must go well with your tree.
poohpah chalupa– I have seen Pooh-themed trees before, and they are always adorable. And white chaser lights with glass ornaments? Love it, love it!
I only get this excited about decorating during Christmas. Otherwise, I’m like, eh, whatever.
sassyKYredhead– That’s a really cute topper idea for your first Christmas together.
Medea’s Child– I like the idea of sacrificial ornaments for the kitties. Wished we’d thought of that with my grandma’s cats. Have a safe trip home!
I’m enjoying these posts very much. Thanks for sharing your stories, everyone. Keep them coming!
We have an artificial tree - I forget the height but it isn’t terribly tall, 1.8 or 1.9 meters I believe.
The lights are white. Most of the ornaments are handmade - a few by me, some by flodjunior at preschool, some plastic canvas ornaments made by my grandmother (she sent us a bunch several years ago), and some (mostly counted crosstitch type) by my sister. The “boughten” ornaments are all ones that have some meaning to us, marking a special event (“Baby’s First Christmas”) or an interest/obsession (trains, Snoopy). Over this we hang garlands of Norwegian flags. No glittery garlands, no tinsel.
Underneath there is an elaborate wooden railway with two loops, a turntable, a grade crossing, a railway station, a hotel, a street with seven little shops, two engine sheds, a dead-end siding… (Should I go on or are yinz jealous enough already? :D)
Not really. I’m from southeast Pennsy, but spent three years in Pittsburgh (studying at Pitt). And I’m female. And flodnak is spelled with a small “f”. But other than that…
You know how when your in kindergarden and elementery school you usually end up making tons of Christmas ornaments every year? Somehow I managed to keep the majority of them (amazing being as I can’t seem to hold onto anything else) and that’s what I used to decorate the tree. I really love them because it reminds me of how great Christmas is as a kid. They are sort of goofy, but I’m totally a kid at heart…
So, I have this tree full of clothespin reindeers and hand-painted gingermen and the like. Certainly not the most beautiful tree in the world, but it brings it home for me.
Of course, I have the obligitory doomed ornaments for the kitties. Most of them are gone already and the tree has only been up for a week!!
A pickle ornament on a Christmas tree is indeed a German tradition. One version of this tradition has that you hang the pickle on the tree on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas morning, the first child to find the pickle on the tree gets a prize.
I’m really curious as to why your wife started this. I’m Irish-American, but I read about the pickle tradition in one of my favorite books from childhood and I’ve always been tempted to add this tradition to our tree.
Delphica
Mrs justwannano said she is part German too,(??? I didn’t know that)
She says she just thinks traditions are neat and she liked this one and wants the kids to have traditions to remember .
Oh gosh, that’s awesome! I bet a lot of people wish they’d kept or still had their old ornaments. Me, I don’t remember ever making Christmas ornaments in school. Maybe I did, and my mom has them squirreled away somewhere.
When I volunteered at a preschool, on the last day of school the kids gave me a (drinking) straw and construction-paper flower lei. It’s pretty cute. I was just thinking how I could make a really long one just like it and use it as a garland.
Zumba:
Vaulted ceilings, tall, lighted tree in front of big window. Tell me it’s snowing where you are and I’ll be completely jealous.
One time in high school I got my date a silly pre-Christmas present of cheap ornaments, plain purple glass balls we saw on sale for $1.
We were feeling silly, and since the tree had no other purple ornaments, we hung them all on one branch, bending it down. It was hilarious, and it stayed that way all the season.
My mom still possesses this thing I made in Kindergarten, which consists of a styrofoam ball with beads and stuff sticking out of it…still mades my sister chuckle whenever she sees it. Ugly as sin, but it’s sweet that mom hangs it on the tree every year…
We had a huge fake tree in the store. A lady took the trunk home to see if it would fit. In the meantime, a guy came in & bought the rest of the tree. Okay, today, he came back & said ‘where is the trunk?’
I don’t have a tree. However, I put lights & ornaments on the house, so it looks like a tree.
I have heard that Sprite instead of water keeps your tree alive longer.
I LOVE the baby’s breathe on the tree idea!! I am thinking now maybe the odd silk pointsetta in there too would be nice.
My poor fake tree is covered with about 1400 lights also, multicoloured. All my most preciuos ornaments have specific spots where they go, for example when I was in grade 3 my ‘boyfriend’ gave me a ceramic bell that has always been placed on the top in the very front…and always will.
Every year my mom buys me a special ornament. I have an angel on my tree top, but I am always in search for the perfect star. I do not like tinsil, not to mention my dogs would spread it all over the house. I used silver beads instead of garland and to pull it all together I have red, gold, silver and green glass balls that reflect the lights.
This reminded me of something I saw in a um, Martha Stewart catalog. (It’s my mother’s. Really!) They got some clear crystal round and triangle beads, and some silver-lined bugle beads, and made garland out of them. What made it different, though, was that this garland wasn’t one long strand; it was a set of a whole bunch of shorter (10" long I think) ones. They were hung from branch to adjacent branch with silver earhooks. I was going to try to make it myself with my own stash of beads but I didn’t have the time.
I put my tree up bare. On the 21st I’ll hang one light and add a a light each night for 8 nights. No I’m not a Jew, nor am I Christian. I’m just me.MTS
