Because I saw a Christmas tree on display this weekend, and just because I thought of it on the bus this morning…
How do you decorate your tree for Christmas (or what do you do if you celebrate Christmas but don’t do a tree?). Are you steady-light or blinking-light kind of people? Angel or Star? White lights or colored lights? Glass balls or little figurine ornaments?
Thankfully, my wife and I are both steady-light-with-angel kind of people. We differ on white/colored lights. I think white lights look too “store display” for a home, she thinks their classy. So far I’m winning but I’m going to have to give in and we’ll have an all-white-light tree soon, I’m sure. I’d like more shiny glass balls on the tree but the wife likes the little Hallmark-style little-mouse-wrapping-presents kind of ornaments so we have a bunch of them.
Personally, I think 10% of all divorces would be avoided if we just sorted all this stuff out beforehand.
My Christmas tree is about 2 feet tall and came from Wal-Mart and is stored in a box year round. IIRC it has multi-colored lights and little shiny balls, that is, the ones that haven’t fallen off in it’s short life.
I prefer white nonblinking, husband prefers colored.
If we put out the big fake tree, we can’t put anything at the top because it would bump into the ceiling. If we put out the little fake tree, seems like I recall putting an angel on it one year so I assume we have one somewhere.
Ornaments are whatever is on sale at Wal-Mart that year. I am not at a place financially where I can be spending 50 bucks on heirloom Christmas ornaments, although I really like some of the stuff Hallmark comes out with. Maybe someday.
I’m not even putting a tree up this year because we’re going out of state for the holidays. No point, although I do plan on putting out other decorations. There is nothing like a burning Apple Cinnamon candle on a cold December night
Last year’s tree theme was red and white. It was beautiful. The kids wanted multi-colored lights. Leave it to JuanitaTech to take the joy out of Christmas…
On the tree- while non-blinky lights. In the windows, colored non-blinky lights (white lights, lots of snow… too monochromatic). Oh! I do have a string of antique bubble-lights which are colored red and green that I also hang on the tree.
Tree topper: This is similar. Mine is from the early 50’s, made in Germany. Found gathering dust in the attic at my aunt’s house. The bulb part is matte red, but the spire is shiny silver.
Ornaments: Numerous antique blown glass (primarily German, some Japanese), handmade ornaments (either by me or LilMiss), and a handfull of newer store bought ones to “round” the tree out.
The tree itself is “captured” the second weekend in December. My whole family treks up to the woods to hunt down a few of those wily Christmas trees. We have an outdoor picnic in the usually lovely 10F weather (last year was balmy- around 30F!). We show LilMiss the wonders of nature (last year she saw her first bear), and just have a blast.
Multi-colored, some blinking, some not, star on the top, all different kinds of ornaments from cheap store bought to one-of-a-kind gift ornaments.
This year, I’ll be giving most of our decorations to our daughter. I’ll keep the ornaments that are special to us, and we’ll trade our big tree for her small one.
On the tree, I like white, non-blinking lights - they don’t screw with the ornaments’ colors. I like to supplement them with old-fashioned colorful bubble lights, though (no more than 10 or 20 - one or two strings - to the tree, because they’re really just light-up ornaments). Colored lights that blink go around windows and outdoor trees.
White, non-blinking lights on a pre-lit artificial tree. No muss, no fuss, no daddy ruining the Christmas spirit while wrestling with tangled cords. Hodgepodge ornaments. Angel on top, though I always feel a little guilty ramming a tree up her hoo-ha.
This is one of those weird things that agnostics do, isn’t it? We ignore religious claptrap all year and then bow to our family traditions at Christmas.
We do a real Noble Fir, about 8-10 feet high, about 8-10 strings of white lights (no blinkers), and we have ornaments collected from all over the world and from our life together, including some gorgeous baroque angels we picked up in Portugal. The blue spruce outside the house gets blue lights only, which are pretty when covered with snow. The neighbors love it.
More termination dust on the mountains today; the last batch melted off, but I think this one is here to stay.
We do a mix of white and colored, no blinking. Tons of tinsel, colcored balls, hand made paper chains I made in 3rd grade, figurine ornaments and a gold star at the top.
We get a real tree from a local Christmas tree farm. I feel no more guilty about cutting down a real tree than I do eating a carrot - both were grown for that express purpose. My in-laws got us a little twirling singing fiber-optics tree one year that only comes out if they are going to be with us for the holiday.
Not sure how we are going to decorate the house this yeear - this is the first Christmas in our new home so we’ll have to get creative.
Lots of ornaments. Last year’s tree was eight feet high and almost as scrawny as Charlie Brown’s tree. Yet, the light strings and ornaments made it appear as though it big, bushy and full.
We also have a fake “tree.” Well, not a tree at all. Imagine a 30-inch disk of 3/4 inch plywood with hooks every inch all along the edge. From the center of the disk is screwed in a five-foot high, two-inch diameter dowel (clothes closet rod) with those same hooks near the top and about a foot down from the top. Using light strings going up and down, up and down, etc, we created our first Christmas “tree.”
We still set it up because the cat wants it. When the lights are turned on, he walks in between the strings and sleeps in the center. It’s warm, safe, and he’s invisible. However, to walk by the tree too closely and a paw appears out of nowhere to swat at you.
<hijack> Mrs. Duckster is heavy into all the holidays. Right now our front porch has three Halloween banner flags, about a dozen small (nine inch high) florescent plastic skeletons, three 12-inch furry spiders, cobwebs, a couple of really nice signs (“Scaredy Cats Welcome!”), and potted (blooming) orange mums all round.
The day after Hallowwen all will be replaced with Thanksgiving stuff. Then Christmas, followed by Winter Snowmen, Valentines Day, Spring Flowers, Memorial Day flags, ad infinitum.
</hijack>
We have a fake tree that we cover in lots of colored, steady lights, yards of gold tinsel, and faux-candy garland. This in addition to a bunch of ornaments, most of which have sentimental value; we have a good mix of balls and figurines, and a few really old ones that my sister and I made back in preschool.
Big, fake, but realistic looking tree. Red and gold (only) tinsel and ornaments – classy. (Hey, we’re easy to please). Angel with harp and porcelain head/hands. (And I’m agnostic. shrug).
Strings of coloured lights, but not on the tree. Up in the rafters (for want of a better term) of the back deck as they look festive and help to illuminate the BBQ area.
Coloured, blinking, and REAL tree. No matter how good an artificial tree looks, (and I think never tree-ish enough) it still smells wrong.
They’re usually plantation thinnings, and the boy scouts sell them, so I have no idea why anybody would object to this. I never heard of anyone objecting to live trees until [b[Twiddle** disclaimed guilt in this here thread. Though I do know people who like to keep a tree growing in a pot.
Topper is a star but I don’t care much. it’s a bit tatty now, the next one might well be an angel. Ornaments are all sorts. Glass balls, yes. I have some little red apples i got in New York. Mr Cajela has embroidered cross-stitchy things his mum made.
