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Pad Patter 7.24.15: Christmas Trees

jenevang

jenevang

Rocking a two-piece under my scrubs
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In honor of the TLP Christmas in July Event, let's talk holidays...

For those celebrating Christmas, do you get a tree? Real or artificial? When do you usually put it up? How do you decorate it? Are you a white light family or colored?

Give us a glimpse...

For us, we always go out as a family after Thanksgiving dinner and pick out a tree from the lot. And Black Friday is spent decorating (forget the crowds). We have both white and colored lights although I grew up with all white and I think my mom still twitches a little when she sees the chaos that is our tree, hehe...

Our ornaments are all over the place. Most are gifts or mean something. I pick up ornaments as my "souvenir" from places we visit. Inexpensive and we get to relive our adventures every year on our tree.

I LOVE MY TREE. Seriously. It makes me happy just thinking about it. I can just sit in my living room and stare at it and I'm always a little sad to take it down (usually around New Years).

I was actually going to post a LO highlighting my tree but didn't find one in the gallery. How did that happen? :dizzy Must.Fix.That.Now. hehe...
 
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We usually go the Sunday after Thanksgiving to a tree farm and cut down our own tree. Then we spend the next week or two adding lights and getting it decorated. We used to get it decorated on the day we cut it down, but it takes longer and longer each year. Whoops. We use colored lights and have a seriously eclectic collection of ornaments on our tree. My MIL has bought my hubby a Hallmark ornament every year since he was born and now she does the same for each of our boys every year. When she gave me the box with my hubby's collection, it has a handwritten list for which ornament he had from each year and notes if the box was missing, etc. Like she's serious about his collection. ...and let's just say that I'm not that interested in "curating" this collection. I think that's why I avoid decorating the tree more each year. I hate having to open each box (carefully) and then when we take the tree back down I have to find the correct box to put the ornaments back into. Don't get me wrong, I think it's so sweet and cool that she gives him all these ornaments, I just feel pressure that I'm going to wreck all her hard work! And let's face it, those ornaments are the nicest ones on our tree!
 
A few years ago we made the change to a real tree, and I love it! So much fun to go pick it out and haul it home!

We put it up a week-ish before Christmas, and usually take it down within a few days of it being over. We do colored lights - TONS of colored lights!! Our ornaments are also a collection of gifts through the years, and most of them have meaning behind them.
 
Ha!! Karen, I can totally relate to the specific box with the ornament ordeal!! Finally last year we scrapped it all, and just wrapped them all in towels or something and shoved them into a storage bin. I'm so over it! LOL :giggle
 
RebeccaH said:
Ha!! Karen, I can totally relate to the specific box with the ornament ordeal!! Finally last year we scrapped it all, and just wrapped them all in towels or something and shoved them into a storage bin. I'm so over it! LOL :giggle
Click to expand...

THIS. I got rid of most boxes a while ago and use tissue and bubble wrap now. I try to write the date/giver on the ornament somewhere if possible.
 
Although I love real trees I cannot for the life of me keep one "alive" long enough to get to Christmas. I'm sure it has something to do with watering it (I can't grow a house plant for the life of me) but the needles always fell off. I switched to a fake tree almost 20 years ago and haven't looked back. I now have a very slim line one. I have 3 huge bins of ornaments. We switch off with either the red/green/gold group that includes all the kids craft ornaments as little bitties and white lights OR the purple/silver/white set of ornaments with a mixture of white and purple lights. Which one is always a last minute decision. Because I put all the ornaments away carefully, no one wants to help with that part but I do ask the kids to help with those blasted lights and to decorate the tree. We do ours on Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving usually. Now that my daughter is older and has a long-term bf with family, we'll see if that stays the case as she's my biggest helper in getting the house all gussied up.
 
soooo following this post! we traditionally don't celebrate Christmas. But with dear son growing up and understanding a little, we do want to start celebrating it. Last year we were in the midst of a move therefore ended up buying a small tree. DH and DS had a SUPER fun time decorating it with the little ornaments.

This year plan is to get a bigger tree....therefore loving reading what everyone else does :)
 
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2014 was our first tree as a family. I have made an ornament every year since 2009 as my gift to everyone. My goal is to have a tree full of handmade ornaments after many years. For now, we have colored lights and white lights. I picked up a box of "shatter proof" colorful ornaments (toddlers), and we had a fake tree (boooooooo!). I have a handmade fabric garland I made in 2010 with red/green/gold scraps from my interior design classes. Lol. These are some of the many stories I hope to document eventually. (I'd love to do them this week, but I don't think it's a realistic goal considering everything going on this week.... :( )
 
Real trees need lots and lots of water when you first get them home. I refill the water every couple hours the first day. After that you can relax. I've done pretty good about keeping them happy until Christmas, but DH is in charge of throwing it out as we're on the 3rd floor and I'm a weakling, so by the time *he* gets around to doing it, it is losing needles! Then again we haven't had a tree the past couple years. No space for it. I'd consider doing fake if we got a bigger place, though maybe with a real wreath or something so we at least get the smell. :)
 
Oh my word, we have had all sorts and it changes every year in some way! We had a fake one when my kids were little, kinda a safety thing in my mind. Then went to real trees as they grew up until about high school when they pretty much got over the choices. What is wrong with kids and Christmas as they get to the teen years? Everything is "boring", hahaha!

A few years ago I bought one of the tall skinny pre-lit trees, which we LOVE LOVED until the lights burned out, haha! The kids took turns decorating it different each year for our 100+ boxes of ornaments. One year the just placed round bulbs for eye and created a mouth, then a couple of dangles for earrings - it was hilarious, and fun for them to be able to do their "thing"!
 
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We have two trees... one at each house, both artificial. We have Christmas morning at our house in Michigan, so we put that tree up the day after Thanksgiving while we're up there. It's one of those super skinny, pre-lit (white lights) trees. We call our cabin "Bearkski", so most of the ornaments are bears or are skiing related. We have also several that we picked up locally up there. The tree comes down on New Year's Day.

At home, we have another pre-lit tree (white again), but this one is normal sized. Almost all of the ornaments on it were gifts or are souvenirs from places we've been. It goes up the first weekend after Thanksgiving and the kids are much less motivated to help with this one, so it's usually just me and my husband. It comes down as soon as we're home from Christmas break.
 
We bought an artificial pre-lit tree with white lights 8 years ago on Black Friday and for the last couple of years when we pull it out and plug it in, there is a lot of holding our breath to see if this is the year that it kind of goes out on us. So far, so good though. Can you believe that I have never had a real tree-not growing up or as an adult!! I see how a real tree can be fun to go and pick out as a family, but since I have never experienced it, I don't fee like I am missing out on anything.

Our ornaments are all pretty sentimental though and my husband is usually in charge of hanging them with the boys. We talk through all the stories and people who gave them to us each year and so that is always a sweet time.

We usually have our tree up by the beginning of December and I love it, but I am always so happy to have it all put away. It instantly makes me feel like I have decluttered my house LOL.
 
I wish we could have a real tree but Bianca and I are allergic to them. We put up 4 trees through out the house. All white lights but one that's has gold lights.
 
Found an old LO with our tree on it. Not a great pic, but you get the idea...

 
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