What's your Holiday decorating style?

Assuming that you celebrate (Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/Thank-Og-It’s-Finally-Going-To-Start-Getting-Dark-Later-Fest), what is your holiday decorating style?

I was raised Catholic, celebrating Christmas, and my favored style (assuming that I decorate, which isn’t a given with three cats and a dog) is the style I grew up with, which could be charitably named Mid-Century Suburban, or just old-fashioned.

Our Christmas tree for many years was lit by these kind of lights, alternating at various times between the clear ones and the painted, opaque ones.

We always had the big tinsel, full and sparkly. The houses under our tree were the pressed-paper and glitter vintage ones, with bottlebrush trees and a “pond” made by laying a mirror on the glittered cotton snow under the tree, then putting a rectangle of single-layer cotton snow with an oval cut-out over the mirror. (Can you believe I can’t find a pic of that cotton snow online?)

We had the most eclectic mix of christmas tree balls/decorations ever…everything from vintage (we just called them “old”) silvered/painted glass balls to things we kids had made in Cub Scouts that year. Balls, teardrops, popsicle stick sleds, photo ornaments made from wallet-size photos of us inside a tiny plastic cup glued to a cardboard circle and glitter-glued, glitzy hallmark “annual” ornaments (“1983!”), baked craft dough ornaments in the shape of really lumpy angels…you name it, we had it. About all we didn’t have were talking ornaments.

ETA: Dammit! I meant to add a poll to this, but hit Submit by reflex…

I admit I’m boring and like the little white twinkly lights on houses, especially the lacey icicle lights. Big colored ones, not so much. I like the 3 feet tall plastic santas and snowmen lit from within, they look so charming glowing in the snow. Those big blowup things ought to be banned from the continent!..Inside, for years I was all Martha Stewart burgundy, hunter green, and gold all over. Now I’m starting to like the blue/white/silver snowflake look and am torn as to which colors I want to decorate with! I have gaudy white sparkly peacocks I found at Walmart to put on the tree, but they will end up fighting with the cardinals and pheasants we’ve been putting on for years! We put up the family decorations on the tree as you described above, and treasure each and every home-made ornament, and the ones from our daughter’s arts n’ crafts - the frame with macaroni glued on and sprayed gold, the ‘eye of God’ made from sticks and yarn and tucked into the branches of the tree. I love retro ornaments, too, if they’re small. Our tree (and house) is small, I cant have great big colored balls weighing down the branches
even if they DID belong to Mr. Sali’s mother.

Forgot to mention our rustic home-made ornaments -thin slices of wood sawed off the end of the Christmas tree to make little plaques, with photographs
glued on, the date and occasion marked with a Sharpie, and hung up with wire or ribbon.

Considering I’m very active at church and believe in Jesus and all that ----------- our nativity scene is a little strange. It is actually a mixture of a standard nativity made using chickens for the figures and some Halloween-themed (Department56?) type amusement park things. So I guess the proper term for our decorating style would either be “eclectic” or “frikkin strange”.

(I hid a picture on a friends website because I figure no-one is going to believe this without seeing it)

http://www.cybercoins.net/images/armstrong/funcreche.jpg

Tim Taylor. I want it big bad and obnoxious. I generally don’t do much inside besides put lights on the tree and a couple of Santa’s around the house and my ornaments are things people have given me over the years.

Outside on the other hand I’ve spend thousands of dollars over the years because each year I start with a blank outline of where I’m living and then draw up the scene that I want for the year and I try to fit in my existing lights and figures. Then I go buy all of the new things I need.

Unfortunately, the last couple of years I haven’t been able to do outside lights for a variety of reasons but I still drive around looking for ideas for the future.

Full of tacky nostalgia. Silver aluminum tree that belonged to Grandma which would look fantastic if I would just stick to one color ornament, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do that. It is, of course, illuminated by a color wheel. Then, in honor of a tree a family friend had and I desperately coveted as a child, my mother found me a pink tinsel tree (the original was aluminum–I always wanted the full spectrum of aluminum trees) which currently sits, due to space limitations, on top of the entertainment center. Then a few years back Avon was selling a pink fiberoptic Barbie tree, and what are fiberoptics trees except the aluminum of the '00’s? It is our only lit tree, so I stuck it in the front window, but it’s very small so I put it on a cat condo. (Barbie tree on top of a cat condo in the front window of a trailer…doesn’t that say “will never marry”?) Now, the palm tree, that I put in my outbuilding-office, which is currently unheated, so it hardly gets seen even by me…Because of the cats, we occasionally find our carpet littered with aluminum branches, but I put the most fragile ornaments in the china cabinets, and for several years now the only damage we’ve had has been tooth and claw marks on some styrofoam glitter ornaments.
(And btw, I did marry. My husband is Jewish. Just his luck to get a Shiksa with a Christmas tree fetish.)

We hang a wreath on the front door. We have a tiny 800 sq foot house, with a craptastic floor plan and no space to put a tree, even if we could keep the cat from climbing it and destroying the ornaments and eating tinsel. We will hang a single fancy stocking on the mantle by the woodstove and we keep it full of candy canes for random visitors.

My mom on the other hand loves the traditional tree, so every year my brother goes out with the chainsaw and gets a tree, drags it home and decorates it with the last 100 years worth of ornaments. My favorite is a german glass peacock that has been around since before I was born. I have no idea how old it is. it has real peacock feathers in the tail, and looks almost exactly like thisone.

My sparkly white peacock would love to meet your German peacock!

Kopek, LOVE your nativity scene! and to think they’re bitching around here about a Peanuts-themed nativity scene…

Eclectic and restrained.

Only a wreath outside. Inside, a menorah, a tree, festive greenery and lights on the fireplace mantle. The tree has an accumulation of bear-related ornaments, kid-made stuff (clothespin cows, juice-can lid stars, etc.), and souvenirs of travel adventures (the Eiffel Tower, Mickey Mouse, seashells). I don’t do much decorating, but I enjoy what little I do.

I love looking at other people’s outdoor holiday displays. We have a neighbor whose yard looks like a bunch of mentally-challenged people went hog wild with lights and trinkets and blowups, the best of which is Santa riding a Harley. His place is a cross between Clark Griswold (X-Mas Vacation) and Christmas in Hell. Said neighbor spends hours every weekend from Columbus Day to Thanksgiving getting all that dreck positioned just right. I absolutely love it! I admire his earnest effort, the splendor of kitchiness, and I would be pissed if I drove home in the dark and didn’t see his fantastic and bizarre scene of Jesus and the elves lighting my way.

Shabby chic. I have one small pink Christmas tree that I’ve decorated in all brown. Brown snowflakes, glass balls, a giant ribbon on top and a satin brown tree skirt. Despite how it sounds, it’s really pretty.

I’m a minimalist. I like the one white “candle” in each window, one Moravian star on the porch look. Maybe an elegant wreath on the front door.

Inside, I don’t really even feel the need for a tree, although my girlfriend and I did put this one up last night. :slight_smile:

I like your minimalism, KneadToKnow, and DANG! that paper tree is cute!