When do you put up your tree & decorations? When is too early? This afternoon (the last day of November) I relented and dragged all of our stuff out of the attic, the tree is now up along with all the decorations. I like to wait until the end of the first week of December but my wife and daughter were going on and on and on and on and on......... it wasn't helped when next door put their outdoor Christmas lights up on Friday.
So, when do you start the Christmas decorations? Each year I seem to see more and more decorations earlier and earlier. I'm not miserable but it seems like we've only just finished with Halloween!!!
The garage gets decorated first , the house next. Generally the process starts right after Thanksgiving.,
Today is the day for us. Dragging stuff out of the attic now. Hard to be in the mood when it is in the upper 70's and we are ruuning the AC to keep he humidity down but....
my wife got ours out today. she will probably start on it tomorrow. thankfully, i don't have to help her trim the tree and decorate the house.
Outside lights are done anytime in December when the temp hits less than -5C. It's -20 (-30 with the windchill) right now and if it continues to be cold like this till Xmas the goldang lights are staying in the box.
When the kids were young we would wait until they were in bed after church on Christmas Eve to put up the tree and put out the gifts. Made for a truly "magical moment" for them. That was back in the day when we were both young and bullet proof and sleep was an inconvenience!
We will go and cut our tree down this weekend, lots of tree farms in our area. Wife always says she wants a small tree and we end up with a monster. she was gung-ho to get one saturday but we ended up doing some Christmas shopping instead. Now my 2 youngest grandaughters (see my avatar) have their outfits for all the various family gatherings,church etc.... Personally i like to bring a tree home about mid-month, but outside lights will go up this weekend since my little darlings were asking why our lights weren't up yet.
We did go to visit my father-in-law last night and helped with his decorations. He's in an assisted living facility and the old gals decorate the doors for whatever is the next holiday as soon as the last one passes.
Limey, am curious what does it cost for a tree in your neck of the woods.
Zap- :unitedstates:
Zap, to be honest very few people have "real" trees, they tend to be low quality and shed the needles within a few days, most trees (including ours) are fake. I've always wanted a real tree but my wife isn't convinced with the mess from the needles! Personnally I'd love a house with a real open fire and a real Christmas tree, one day........
A decent quality 7 feet tall real tree will set you back around 100 Bucks from a garden-centre, a nice looking fake tree around 50 Bucks more.
We too Zap go and cut our tree,here there are many many Christmas Tree Farms.It is tradition in our family.We are going this weekend.We put up lights in the 2nd or 3rd weekend of November but wait to hit the power until the first week of December.Stringing lights up in December is not fun.The Tree farm we go to is a 300 acres place and you can walk it,cut your own and wait for the tractor to pick ya up.
Trees cost anywhere from 30 bucks to 80 bucks, depending on size and species.A 8 foot Blue Spruce is the costly one---80 bucks.
Several years ago, I was reflecting on childhood Christmas memories. My grandparents had the bubbling candle lights on a unique tree. Being a naïve, poor farm kid, I never realized the unique tree was a scrub, cedar/juniper that grows wild. The 'men folk' would go out and harvest their own tree off their own farm, bring it in the house and every one decorates. Again this year, grandson, son, and I search out and cut a home grown, scraggly tree and dress it up for Christmas.
My wife just reminded something. Around nine years ago my Grandfather gave us a small Christmas tree that he'd put up in his front room every year, I can remember it from when I was a youngster, on the tree were about six Christmas angel figures, it was all quite old and tatty so we left it in the cupboard. A few months later my Grandfather called to say he'd heard that the angel figures had possibly been painted in leaded paint (they were old!) and seeing as out daughter was only one year old we took his advice and threw it away, we didn;t really want her finding it and chewing on figures with leaded paint.
Fast forward a few years. Last year my Mother rang (my Grandfathers daughter) asking if we'd still got that old Christmas tree with the angel figures on it. I told her the story and how we'd thrown it out a few years previously, she let out a deep sigh so I asked why, did it have sentimental value? No, she'd been watching an antiques programme on TV and someone had a set of the very same angel Christmas tree decorations and they'd just been valued at over a thousand pounds each (around fifteen hundred Dollars)..............
My wife has tons of decorations (not just ornaments) that her mom & dad made and sold for years. And tonight we'll be hauling the loot into the house and going thru it and thinning the herd so to speak. Her plan is to pick out the pieces she wants tonight and then allow our daughter, her sister, nieces and oldest gran daughter pick things they'd like to have this weekend. Should make for an interesting afternoon, plan on just heading off and watch a football game.
My oldest gran daughter has collected ''nativities'' for years. Unbeknown to her my wife is gifting to her a very large set her mom made years ago. Must be a dozen or more very large pieces in that set. Am guessing my GD will continue to store them here along with the other 2 tubs of nativities.
Cost of trees in this area pretty much as Jeffs up there in Palookaville. One year wife decided no more mess with a real tree so she bought a fake 10 foot tree. Spared no expense on it and was about as real looking as I've ever seen. Took a couple hours to assemble. Well that lasted for 2 years and next thing you know I was hauling it off to Goodwill. Her excuse was ''too much work'', she can try to BS me but we all know better than to bull**** a bull****ter. If the truth was told its she missed going to the tree farms with the kids and picking just the right tree. That happens this weekend.
Zap- :unitedstates:
I try to support other craftsmen and artists, small business in general, Last year my wife surprised me by getting some hand pinstriped christmas ornaments done by Jennifer Skidmore.Hotrod Jen does wonderful work and hails out of P.A.
Christmas is a pretty big tradition in our home and I cherish these.
(http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q7/JEFFNORWELL/JEFFS%20ART%20ALBUM/IMG_1366.jpg) (http://s132.photobucket.com/user/JEFFNORWELL/media/JEFFS%20ART%20ALBUM/IMG_1366.jpg.html)
(http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q7/JEFFNORWELL/JEFFS%20ART%20ALBUM/IMG_1367.jpg) (http://s132.photobucket.com/user/JEFFNORWELL/media/JEFFS%20ART%20ALBUM/IMG_1367.jpg.html)
(http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q7/JEFFNORWELL/JEFFS%20ART%20ALBUM/IMG_1368.jpg) (http://s132.photobucket.com/user/JEFFNORWELL/media/JEFFS%20ART%20ALBUM/IMG_1368.jpg.html)
(http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q7/JEFFNORWELL/JEFFS%20ART%20ALBUM/IMG_1369.jpg) (http://s132.photobucket.com/user/JEFFNORWELL/media/JEFFS%20ART%20ALBUM/IMG_1369.jpg.html)
Nice balls !
Easy trigger.. this our first date.
lol
About 20 years ago we were invited over to one of my wife's friends a few days after Thanksgiving. One of those invites you'd like to get out of as they were a bit beyond peculiar specially when together. The wives went off to her music room and had a great time, was left with the husband watching a football game.All he could talk about was the origin (country) of players name. Was actually glad that about halftime whatever he was drinking put him to sleep.His snoring was welcome.
But back to the subject of Christmas decorations. On his tree were some antique German candle holders. Family heirlooms according to him. Now I've see them before but never had seen them with actually lit candles. Spooked the heck out of me. Visions of the tree turning into a Roman candle right next to me haunted my thoughts.
Zap- :unitedstates:
My step-mother is German and has a German Christmas decoration that is like a candle-powered carousel, similar to the one below. They work by the candle heat rising and turning the blades which makes everything go round, quite unusual.
(http://www.jaybellbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/weihnachtspyramide.jpg)
Zap, I have a friend who is of German decent, and they do the lit candles on a tress as well.
No Thanks.
Quote from: Limey57 on 2014-12-03 14:02
My step-mother is German and has a German Christmas decoration that is like a candle-powered carousel, similar to the one below. They work by the candle heat rising and turning the blades which makes everything go round, quite unusual.
These show up a Christmas Bazaars all the time, we have a similar but smaller version made of brass with angels and can't remember what else circling around. We stopped using it years ago as our cats were fascinated by it and would jump on the mantle to check it out. Recipe for disaster.