# Silver tinsel on your xmas tree or no?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 6, 2003, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367 "2003-12-06T12:49:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/1 "2003-12-06T12:49:55Z")
You know – the icicle-style silver tinsel. When I was a kid in San Diego we had a fake white-flocked tree and always decorated it with gold garland, shiny balls and lots and lots of silver tinsel. I’ve gotten away from the white flocking and gold garland, and I use lots of different kinds of ornaments instead of only balls, but, to me, it just isn’t a Christmas tree without a liberal application of the silver stuff. I know others who wouldn’t have a single strand anywhere near their tree.
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### Author:  [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/2 "2003-12-06T13:21:45Z")
The tree just isn’t finished until you put the tinsel on! Call it tacky if you like (hey, maybe it is tacky), but without it, my tree just don’t look right!
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### Author:  [@tanookie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanookie)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/3 "2003-12-06T13:41:15Z")
No tinsel for us - the cats would eat it and I don’t like it anyway.
It was one of those things we had to have growing up and I was always the one stuck picking tinsel out of the carpet for a month after the tree came down.
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/4 "2003-12-06T14:16:12Z")
Yeah, my mother had a serious thing about tinsel.
All three of her kids do tinsel-free trees.
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### Author:  [@Creaky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Creaky)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/5 "2003-12-06T14:58:31Z")
No tinsel on our tree as I remember, just lights and a variety of ornaments. My dad has a thing for stuff in miniature, so he buys cool wooden and metal ornaments all year round wherever he and my mother go.
Heh. Now _I_ am a different story! My whole tree is tinsel… a silly tacky one that I bought at an Amvets Thrift Shop over 10 years ago. I got it and a box of decorations for about $7.00, I think. Man, I love that tree! It loses tons of tinsel bits every time I put it up, but it’s still hanging in there, even if it is a bit denuded.
Long live Tacky Christmas!!
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### Author:  [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/6 "2003-12-06T15:34:52Z")
We use silver garland, and I’ve taken to putting it on Scandihoovian style, in straight lines top to bottom. It alternates with flag garlands, hung the same way. No tinsel.
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### Author:  [@Silver\_Serpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Serpentine)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/7 "2003-12-06T15:53:43Z")
My tree, every year:
A live, potted tree
Blue lights
Silver and blue glass balls
silver tinsel
I like silver and blue, hehe.
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### Author:  [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/8 "2003-12-06T15:57:36Z")
We always used to do tinsel when I was growing up. When I got cats, I had to stop, cuz they’d eat it.
I never got back into the habit.
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### Author:  [@imperfectionist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/imperfectionist)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/9 "2003-12-06T16:02:12Z")
I loved it when tinsel was really tin (hence the name).
You could make things with the balled up tinsel afterward, if you could get enough. If not, you still made fishing line weights.
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### Author:  [@hermann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hermann)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/10 "2003-12-06T21:18:14Z")
Nope, no tinsel. No fake Easter basket grass, either. Both are a pain and like to overstay their welcome.
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### Author:  [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2003, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/11 "2003-12-06T22:27:19Z")
No tinsel. No mtallic garlands either. IMHO, they make the tree look cheap.
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### Author:  [@Shrinking\_Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shrinking_Violet)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2003, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/12 "2003-12-07T00:11:13Z")
Yep - definitely tinsel … you need the metallic stuff throughout to reflect the lights and make the whole tree look magical. I love Christmas. 🙂
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### Author:  [@kka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kka)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/13 "2003-12-07T00:31:15Z")
I can’t do tinsel, it always looks like crap when I do it. I have seen other people do it with a **very** light hand, and it looked nice.
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### Author:  [@DaisyFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaisyFace)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2003, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/14 "2003-12-07T00:45:24Z")
I am a non-tinsel person from a non-tinsel family. My mom and I both prefer simple garland. She’s recently begun hanging strings of metallic beads. Very Victorian and pretty.
My husband is a tinsel person for a tinsel-addicted family. He also never had pets growing up. The first year he was horrified that I was anti-tinsel, but we’ve wroked it out. I win. 😃
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### Author:  [@Profane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Profane)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2003, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/15 "2003-12-07T01:25:58Z")
No tinsel, garland (metallic or otherwise), or balls. We do white lights and ornaments. They’re mainly toy themed, as we love toys and have small kids, plus a few special ones we’ve given each other over the years.
My Dad loves tacky though, as much tinsel, garland, multicolored ball and lights (must be blinking!) as humanly possible. I think it’s cute, but not my thing.
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### Author:  [@Infectious\_Lass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infectious_Lass)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2003, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/16 "2003-12-07T01:26:08Z")
Yes to tinsel! I put up my tree today, and it has tons and tons of tinsel, in many colours, lots of silver in particular, as I find that is the colour that reflects the lights best. My Christmas trees are decorated in a style that I can only call ‘sloppy and disorganised deluxe’ and it adheres to the philosophy that you just can’t have enough tinsel! I think I have about 20 or so tinsel garlands, you can’t see the tree for tinsel and its bloody fantastic!
Yay.
And I bought another little tree from Woolworths just so I would have somewhere to put the left over tinsel too.
People actually put up xmas trees without tinsel??? Wow. I never heard of such a thing! A Christmas tree without tinsel is a bizarre concept to me! What’s the point of an xmas tree if you can’t string tons and tons of tinsel on it? 😛
Strange, very strange! 8)
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### Author:  [@SnoopyFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnoopyFan)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2003, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/17 "2003-12-07T04:40:13Z")
I’ve never seen a non-tinseled tree.
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### Author:  [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2003, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/18 "2003-12-07T04:53:53Z")
We have an aritifical tree. I really can’t see tinsel being feasible, seeing as the tree branches are taken off the ‘trunk’ and stored in a box year-round. We have strands of gold and silver beads (small, about 5mm diameter) that we use as garland instead.
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### Author:  [@cadolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cadolphin)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2003, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silver-tinsel-on-your-xmas-tree-or-no/217367/19 "2003-12-07T05:04:32Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by tanookie \*
> \*\*No tinsel for us - the cats would eat it and I don’t like it anyway.
>
> It was one of those things we had to have growing up and I was always the one stuck picking tinsel out of the carpet for a month after the tree came down. \*\*
This says exactly what I would have said.
I tried tinsel once - many years ago. I ended up taking the cat to the vet. Never again!