Do you prefer your Xmas tree to be themed or more randomly decorated? Growing up, my family tree was chaotic. The huge, insanely hot lights were multi-colored. There were several different types of ornaments as the years progressed and styles changed. And of course, there were all the novelty individual ornaments received as gifts, made by my sister and myself as kids, or otherwise manifesting on the tree.
I’ve seen lots of themed trees where they’re white tree with white lights and blue ornaments, or green trees with only bows and white lights, or some such. They look good usually, and they’re great for outdoors or a decoration only. But I feel like THE Xmas tree, the one with the presents, should be the chaotic one. It’s like a seasonal photo album with all the hand-made ornaments.
I remember tinsel. You couldn’t see the tree through all the boxes and boxes of tinsel we smothered it with. As I kid, I would drag a strand of tinsel across one of the aforementioned burning hot lights to watch it shrink in the heat.
I used to be a real tree person. But now I’m a fake tree person. Always chaotic. I love drifting thru memory lane looking at all the old ornaments. I inherited mom’s when she died back in the 80’s.
But… I’m getting to be where I don’t want to decorate at all. It’s so much work, both decorating it and taking it down, and it’s just not fun anymore.
I forgot to say, I always use an artificial tree. Used the same one my whole childhood. When I finally bought a house I bought a fake tree in January for a great deal and it’s so much faster to put up.
We were real tree people for 28 years, but this facility doesn’t allow that, so we now have an artificial one. As for ornaments, we lived in Europe, Africa, and different parts of the US, so our collection is eclectic. We put a few from each of the places on the tree.
We don’t usually do trees. But when we do, it’s an assortment of ornaments collected over the years (i’m not even sure where they are right now). Sometimes colored lights, sometimes just white ones. Always a live tree.
couldn’t agree more. A blue spruce with the random ornaments you purchased on vacations, string popcorn, a mishmash of lights, crude school-made ornaments from the kids, and a crooked angel or star on top is pure nostalgic comfort for me.
My parents are empty-nesters but some years my mother still puts up a tree (with assistance from either me, my brother or his now-adult children). Some of the ornaments are ones with glued-on photos of my brother’s children over the years and some are handmade by the kids as school projects. So those ornaments, though not “fancy”, are treasured. There are other ornaments, some of which also have memories attached.
So I vote for sentiment and memory over elegance and fancy.
Artificial tree - a tall, narrow one.
The lights are red, white and green (so before the other decorations go on, it sort of looks like it belongs in an Italian restaurant).
Looped garlands of gold beads.
Lots and lots of small baubles and other decorations mostly with a vintage style, lots of different colours.
I absolutely love to look at people’s well-themed trees. Think they look cool in the store, too.
Last year was the first year since I bought my house in 2005 that I had a full-sized tree. Before that it was just a tiny one in the front window.
My tree is fake, green, pencil shaped (tall and thin). White lights. Gold tinsel garland (taken from my mom’s stash). New this year is also a fake popcorn garland that I LOVE (got it at a thrift store for $2!). Then my meager collection of ornaments that somehow filled out both the 20" tree and the 6’ tree. I love each one!
Green, real, only white lights, random ornaments dating all the way back to my year in kindergarten (peach pit Santa head). Actually, we’ve probably got older ones than that that we’ve inherited from our parents. But a 45-year-old peach pit?!! Come on, that’s priceless!
Real tree. Colored lights. Some blink others don’t.
We get ornaments from places we go where we are making good memories together. Most of the ornaments are meaningful in some way. Other ornaments used to fill in the tree depending on its size.
Not a fan of delicate glass ornaments, either the cheap globes or the expensive collectible ones. Especially not when there are small children or dogs in the house. Better that the ornaments are more sturdy.
For years, a tradition was for my brother to give his wife one of the annual Hallmark ornaments each year. Several were Star Wars themed.
I generally like what my mom and Grammy called “the Macy’s tree,” color-coordinated, classic, classy. I grew up with real trees but, not having much space or money myself, I have an artificial one. It’s slim, pre-lit, flocked with fake snow, and technically an “outdoor” model - so it has a heavy ‘urn’ as a base.
When I bought it I got a set of blue, a set of pink, and a set of silver ornaments and did color-bands in the trans-pride-flag scheme. I haven’t bothered doing that since, and I’ve acquired more ornaments outside the color scheme over the years. I do still try to keep it generally in line with those colors, though.
