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*****CLOSED & WINNER ANNOUNCED*****GAME: The Great December Debate | DYD 2025

scrapchyck

scrapchyck

I scraplift, therefore I am
Pollywog
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Jan 2, 2023
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Nothing divides families quite like December traditions, especially when you marry into a family that opens all the gifts on Christmas Eve and your family ALWAYS opens gifts on Christmas morning only! Maybe you grew up having ham and scalloped potatoes for Christmas dinner, but then you find out your partner's family eats turkey...AGAIN! What?!?! WHY?????

There are so many ways to approach the holidays, and deep down, we all think our way is right...for us anyway. Our traditions bind us together, give us shared memories and lovely things to look forward to. Most of us would defend them TO THE DEATH! ("We're using Grandma's good china, and that's all there is to it, Mary Jo! Take your holiday-themed paper plates with you back to the Walmart!")

So, here's your opportunity to get on your December soapbox.

Each day of our Document Your December weekend, I'll post a controversial poll or two (or three...come back to find out) in this thread.

I'd like you to:

1) Share your answer.​
2) Express your reason(s) why this is your tradition.​
3) Tell us how you would document your selection.​

I would love to see any pages you've scrapped in the past about your choices and traditions! This isn't a challenge to scrap over the weekend, but hopefully, it will inspire an idea for a page to scrap in the future.

Everyone who participates will be entered into a random drawing for a $5.00 Gift Certificate to the Shop. Get your entries in by Monday, November 17th at 11:59pm Eastern. The more questions you answer, the more entries you'll have in the drawing!

Have fun, be kind, but also be brutally honest!

****************************************************************************************************

THE WINNER OF OUR RANDOM DRAWING FOR A $5.00 GIFT CERTIFICATE IS....

MCURTT​
 
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Yep, I went there! Brought out the big guns right off the bat! Let the battles begin!

For most families that celebrate Christmas, the tree is the centerpiece. When I was married, we always had a fresh tree from a local Christmas tree farm or the friendly lot down the street. After all, my kids are 5th generation Oregonians...if we don't have a fresh tree, who are we? It's our heritage, the mainstay of the economy...Douglas Firs all day, every day. But after the divorce, I could not see a way to make that happen. Not the way we used to anyway, especially with my two story ceilings in the living room. We had BIG trees. So, I bought myself a cute artificial tree in the style I prefer, noble fir, WITH lights, and I made it work. It was so cute once all of our ornaments were on it, so densely packed and full of memories. It was my favorite part of Christmas for many years...just sitting by that glowing tree and remembering the kids when they were little.

Things have changed since I now live with two other women and we no longer have a giant living room (owner/roommate turned that area into another apartment to rent out). So, my tree has been relegated to the shed (RIP), but I get to decorate the artificial tree at work and use some of my favorite ornaments there. We have a very skinny, lights only tree we use now in the living room....not the same at all, but if I've learned anything over the years, nothing is set in stone. Traditions are great and serve a wonderful purpose...until they don't.

I haven't documented the reason for the change, but I might do that this year, with a photo of our real tree and our artificial side-by-side. The answer above would be great journaling!

I did document our new traditions back in 2008 with this page (created with Baers Garten Designs' Petit Noel kit):

webchyck825.jpg
 
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I am a fake tree girl. Real trees aren't really a thing in South Africa. I reckon because it's hot Summer this side. I bought a new tree about 5 years ago, it has pinecones and berries and I love to decorate it with our special ornaments depending on the colour scheme choice for that year. I can't say I miss the chaos of the kid friendly style. I love the classy grown-up matching aesthetic.
 
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I grew up with a fake tree, I think it was my dad family's tradition, because my first tree when I left home was my grandfather's. Apparently he left it to the first grandchild to set-up home. Unfortunately I no-longer have that tree, it toppled over one year and smashed.

My husband's family have real trees, and we get to enjoy one when we visit his parent's house over the festive season.
 
Fake tree if we even put one up....it's been years since we have. The last time our family had a real Christmas of any kind was at least 2018 (2019 my mum was recovering from surgery, 2020-2022 we were dealing with my grandmother and her deterioration before being placed into care then family being separated most years after that by either split families or distance) so it just was never a priority to have a tree up.
 
Now: Artificial (although we haven't put it up for the last 3 years)

Growing up, until the mid 1970's it was always a real tree. Dad would go out on Christmas Eve and get the straggler tree and bring it home.. we used to laugh.. Dad got the Charlie Brown Tree! Then in the mid 1970's, my parents bought the artificial tree.

We always (up until my parents moved in 1988) decorated the tree on Christmas Eve, before going to church. After my parents moved, and my brother and I started our own traditions, we all started putting the tree up Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

Fun memories! Thanks my friend Becky @scrapchyck for the memory sparks!
(I can't wait until you get to the question of Tinsel/Garland/Nothing or re lights - White or multi color!!! :giggle:tree)
 
I am not really a hot beverage person in general, so I'm going with eggnog for this one. But only like really close to Christmas Eve, because lately dairy and I do not get along! If I'm going to do hot chocolate, it's got to have peppermint in it and LOTS of whipped cream!

I think it would be fun to scrap a photo of some festive mugs of eggnog or make sure the carton of my favorite brand gets in my weekly re-cap page, because it's always cutely decorated.
 
I am going with eggnog too. I made Jamie Oliver's recipe the one year and it was really good. Hot chocolate is a winter thing so that's more a July vibe.
 
Christmas Tree:

Growing up we always had real trees. My grandma's nephew owned a tree farm and we would go cut our own tree every year. My grandma, Mom-Mom, would always get the fattest tree! It wasn't very tall because my grandfather, Pop-Pop, would put it on his handmade train table with the Christmas village he built. That's the first memory of Christmas I have, of that Christmas village with all the tiny little people and my favorite was the ice skating rink and the pretty church. Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent, there! So my first tree in my own apartment was also a tree I cut myself that I paid $10 for from the tree farm. Well, years later, the tree farm was sold, and trying to find a reasonably priced real tree to cut started to get quite expensive.

Fast forward to my first child's first Christmas, and she was 9 months old and getting into everything! I bought (or was given, I don't remember) a little table top tree that I tucked behind the corner of our sectional sofa in our apartment so those tiny little fingers would leave the tree alone! I bought all of these cute little Christmas bear ornaments that year for her first Christmas! So as the years went on, that little tree was what we used. My dad gave me a beautiful, full, 7 foot artifical tree probably around 2007. I still use that tree and I love it! I am able to put it up as early as November 1 and don't have to worry about buying one (which would probably be over $100 now for a real tree) and it even loses needles just like a real one, LOL!

So, I'm team artificial! I forgot to add, I always take tons of pictures of us decorating the two trees we put up from start to finish and before the kids can open their gift on Christmas morning, we always take a couple pictures of them in front of it. So I would document those photos with some lights, trees, and ornament elements.
 
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Beverage:

I love egg nog! My uncle used to make home made egg nog (with a kick if you know what I mean!) I was so excited the first time I was old enough to try it! Now, though, I just get the store bought which is only sold in little containers which I find annoying! I would document with a picture of egg nog served in my favorite Christmas glass with little holly leaves on it and a few home made cookies.
 
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We have an artificial tree here. We replaced it in 2023 and it was a saga as my dream tree got sold out from under me repeatedly at Target. (Seriously, I bought it in the app to pickup across the county and someone bought it as the employees were getting it ready for curbside pickup.) My poor husband ended up having to spend more than we budgeted for to get the tree we now have, which I like even better. This one can have white lights (for photographer me) or rainbow lights (for festive me) and they can alternate and twinkle and it's so much fun!

That being said, my first Christmas with my husband, his grandparents had a live tree! His dad's parents took us to pick it and wouldn't you know it, his mom's dad invented an excuse to be in town so he could see me pick my first tree. I watered it when I fed the sourdough starter and dreamed of inheriting the farm so that could be my Christmas every year. I got to see some of their older trees now growing in the woods behind the house.

I love documenting the tree with plenty of bling, glitter, and digital ornaments. I also like using tree-shaped templates.
 
As for beverages, I am team hot chocolate. Especially peppermint hot chocolate. I'm threatening to make a crockpot of it for Christmas if it's not super hot out.

I'd document it in our red Charlie's Cheesesteaks kindness mug with lots of whipped cream and plenty of (digital) sprinkles.
 
Tree:
Growing up we had a real tree, but now we have an artificial tree. I like the fake tree best because I don't have to string on the lights, or remember to water it.

Beverage:
Definitely team hot chocolate! I love milk chocolate with mini marshmallows or lots of whipped cream... yum!
 
Tree: This is an easy one for me -- artificial because real trees don't do well in our dry desert air! When we first moved to AZ, we bought a real tree and that thing lost half its needles before we even got it home. We did what people recommend here - soak it in the pool for 24 hours but it didn't really help much. I was terrified we were going to have a Griswold-family tree incident. :giggle
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I do love seeing (and smelling) real trees when we visit family though.

Hot cocoa vs eggnog: Eggnog! My cousins own a dairy, Danzeisen Dairy, that makes the absolute best eggnog I've ever had. Every year I buy at least one bottle and usually drink it all myself since the rest of my family are not big fans of eggnog.
 
Tree: The real deal! The last five or six years we have cut our own tree and I love that tradition! Some years when the kids grew up we had both, one upstairs and one downstairs

Winter beverage: I don’t think I’ve ever had eggnog so I choose hot cocoa. Love top top it with whipped cream and mini marshmallows.
 
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