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When our grown child WAS a child, we always bought a live (as in alive, in a pot, with roots) tree, then planted it in the backyard. We had a mini-forest when we sold that house.
I did that one year when we moved here, then realized how silly that was, when we now have actual woods.
I got rid of most of my decorations but still need to get the one box of “special” ornaments to my kid someday.
I’m glad to not be putting all that stuff up & down. If I had grandchildren I would probably feel different.
We haven't had one for a few years for reasons of health and family obligations so this year mine went up the day after Thanksgiving, and I am decorating it slowly and really savoring it. I love my little tree. I missed it last year, and two years before that. I'll be done by a couple of days after Christmas and ready to put it all away again for a year.
I also try to buy a new ornament every year, and give the grandchildren their pick, so I figured it out mathmatically and I should be down to under 10 ornaments by the time I die.
It's the 4.5' artificial "pre-lit" table top trees.
I HATE "pre-lit" trees! It was brand new last year...three sections, not sure if strands or what...with the mini lights. It was up for 3 weeks last year, but the very top lights and very bottom lights all went out. After trying for both hours and days of trying to find the offending bulb/s was futile.
So, only the center was lit by Christmas day.
I bought two 30' strands of the C-6 LED sets...one all clear and one colored to put on it instead. Normally I have the clear set on blink and colored on solid, but apparently these dong have that option?
There were plenty of Mini bulbs available at Walmart, I may have to add small set of mini bulbs on blinking.
I never knew IF the LEDs can blink or not.
I've tried avoiding the mini bulbs just to be "green" over mini bulbs...that AND any mini bulbs anymore made in China....just DON'T last, much like the mini bulbs "pre lit" on the tree!
I'm a bit amazed at the colors of the colored C-6 though..there's a gorgeous purple (my favorite color has always been red AND purple (secretly) because I thought purple wasn't a "man's color"...not that I'm all alpha macho he man, and Purple IS the color of royalty.. including Kings, whom, by nature ARE men, lol!
The blue is...well amazingly intense!
The red...is a deeper red than any red in a mini bulb!
The green is nice too.
The..um...yellow/orange, orange, mustard colored bulb is my least favorite, though.
With the faceted C-6 bulb definitely makes them shine more!
Well, tree up, lit, and skirted.
However it's now after 9 pm, so decorating will be tomorrow. Good thing too, we are expecting major rain tomorrow, so a great day to do nothing but decorate the tree!
Since we will be travelling rather than hosting Christmas this year, we mutually decided to not erect and decorate our Christmas tree. All other Holiday and Seasonal desorations are displayed.
Do other retired couples also omit some or all of their holiday decorating?
I haven't put up a tree or decorated at all for the holidays, since 1996 when my daughter was young and living at home. I felt that most of that effort was for her, to give her wonderful holidays to remember in the decades to come.
Now that I am old and retired and live alone, I am perfectly fine with just admiring other people's decorations and not going to all that expense and effort to decorate my own home.
I have a fiber optic tree that sits on a table in the family room.
I used to have a regular sized tree from Wards that I gave to my brother years ago.
He sends me a picture of it decorated every year. I think I bought it in 1995.
Must have gotten our last real tree in 1994…
Well, my 90 year old aunt asked if we could put up a christmas tree so I dug out the small one in the store room and have decorated it for her. I am not a great decorator but she is happy to see it lit up.
My father was a logger all his life even when he was working something else. For Christmas he would go out in our back pasture and cut a huge tree. He'd built the house large enough to hold huge family reunions, and the living room had an open beam ceiling 18 feet high.
The tree he would get would be at least 16 feet tall, and it took at least 3 days to decorate.
The house and tree were so big that one year my BIL bought my sister a year old horse, and he brought it into the house and tied it to the tree. Plenty of room.
My father passed away last year, and I've never put up a Christmas tree in my house, but I'm thinking that this I'll get a big tree and plant it in my back field for him.
I just ordered an "electric train" (meaning BATTERY OPERATED...But then again a real "diesel lol co ISN'T a diesel..it's an ELECTRIC locomotive...the diesel engine IN the loco actually only generates electricity..to drive the electric drive motors within the wheel sets...so go figure) out
It's REAL claim to fame is the attachments that allow me to attach it in the middle of the tree..so it can go around the tree on the branches, so to speak!
The cheapy "electric " (battery again) one I bought to go UNDER the tree...so two going around, oh boy!
Call me a kid if you want.
We always had a real tree growing up, but it was acquired and put up the weekend before Christmas and taken down on New Years day.
I always marveled at things we DON'T have today..the individual blinking bulbs.. twinkling here and there, the shiny tinsel...first lead ones, replaced with...mylar strips or some kind of plastic, the tinsel garland..alternating years the star on top, or the Angel the next year...looking up last year's Christmas family photo to see which was in top the previous year..
I DO have a 2' very nice artificial tree..all lighted, all decorated..in a two foot tall Amazon box...but it's buried in the back of the storage room somewhere.
All it requires is to be pulled out and ta da! Instant tree...for those who WOULD LIKE a tree but don't want all the work putting one up.
Lots of gifts under the tree are a past issue..I don't care about gifts..but the tree...I cant do without one! (Or one in living room and the two footer on the dining table in the bonus room.
Spouse enjoys it too!
Only change was to go with plastic or at least unbreakable ornaments... because of the cats attention to the tree...if they climb and knock it over..none will break.
Oh..I/we DO have HO and N scale REAL model electric trains..that plug into the wall, but DEFINITELY the cats will murder those. Thinking about an around the ceiling train track layout... maybe for next year's project.
As far as gifts..about six years ago I told spouse...'we don't need much, so I got just 3 presents..
1) one practical (coat, or something)
2) one "just for you" present (maybe a jewelry item or for me maybe a new watch to replace the cheap throw away ones)
3) and one 'just for fun' present (a small game of something)
That works very well!
I mean if no one wants to do any Christmas, that's fine
But if it's the work involved only stopping people from enjoying the holiday, there are ways around it.
But to each their own.
Unfortunately my "in the tree train" won't arrive til January 3, but we leave it up til 7 January.
We will have a tree as long as we can physically get it up. All of our ornaments came from places we’ve visited in the past 41 years, ones my children made when they were little, and ones we got when we were first married. It takes a long time to get it decorated because we stop and comment/remember the trip where got each ornament.
We do that too. Ornaments make fun souvenirs from our travels and are easy to pack into the suitcase on our way home. We also get one that resembles each pet to remember them too. It makes decorating the tree a trip down memory lane.
This year, we don't have the holiday spirit. We decided not to put up a tree. We're mentally exhausted between moving my 96 year old mom into Assisted Living around the corner from us, my 70-year old autistic brother's open heart surgery (quadruple bypass) & strokes, getting him into a nursing home for recovery, then cardiac rehab, and setting him up in an apartment in hopes he can live independently - which he currently isn't doing well.
We just don't have the energy for a tree.
That's a lot to handle and I get the lack of "spirit" this year. I wasn't feeling it last year, so we skipped a year. Handling caregiving can be exhausting and moving anyone is a hell all its own. Is brother's new place in an ILF? If it's not, maybe IL will work better for him if this doesn't work out. Take a break and have a hot toddy. You've earned it.
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