Christmas Trees

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Ours was a Christmas wedding. Dec. 18. We came back from our honeyman and went tree shopping. It was a table top thing.

By the next year we had our home and we did it up right. I’ve always liked big trees with lots of lights and ornaments.

Tree duty falls to me and my son, we put it up, and decorate it, takes most of the day. We have LOTS of ornaments. All kinds. Many have family connections. We probably have 10 or so ornaments my son made from K-6th grade. I can’t imagine not having a tree to display them. Many of our ornaments trace back to the earliest days of our marriage. We still have a couple ornaments Debbie picked up in Gatlinburg while on our honeymoon, these are priceless heirlooms now.

We had the foresight to document our first Christmas together with special ornaments, and pictures. We display every year. My son says they bring a special comfort to him. One of the casualties of so much divorce nowdays is the loss of such family history and connections. The 3 of are truly blessed.

My mother died in 2005 and she willed me the family Manger and Nativity scene. I recall the day we bought it, it was cold but sunny, and my mother spent her last few dollars on it. I was 6 years old. I was in Catholic school and helped set it up when we got home. It was one of my most memorable Christmas.

That Manger now occupies a prominent table in the den during the season.

Some decorations are firefighter themed, some are sports, and some are Catholic. My Godmother (aunt) took popsickle sticks and wove a fabric over them with a cross. That ornament is probably 25 years old.

I don’t know how you not have a Christmas tree? We put ours up right after Thanksgiving and take it down between Christmas and New Years. We enjoy everything about the Season.

I just wish we’d do incense at Midnight Mass like we did at Christ The King when I was a boy. But I guess it bothers folks nowdays. I think Father should just tell them will be incense at Midnight Mass this year, and if that bothers ya might oughta go to one of the other 2 Masses.

My :twocents:
 
WHAT??? No incense??? I’ve never heard of NO incense at Midnight mass???:eek: :eek: :eek:
 
Angel_Bradford said:
I have an artificial tree because there’s just something sad about driving passed the Christmas tree lots on Christmas Eve and seeing the trees that didn’t get picked.

I know that probably sounds silly.
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No - not to me. I remember the last time I had a fresh tree, I went with my ex to cut it down and I cried on the way home. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him I felt so horrible taking that tree away from all his friends only to be sent through the chipper in a few weeks. 😊 😦 There may have been a little PMS going on there too. I’m just a softie.

Anyway - I’m HARDLY a tree hugger type, but I really hate walking through the livingroom at 7am in March, half asleep, only to have a pine needle ambush me under my toenail. :eek: :mad:

So fake it is - and a pre-lit tree is the most amazing invention of all times.

We don’t put up the tree till Christmas Eve and keep it up till Epiphany.

~Liza
 
shannyk said:
I’ve never had an artificial tree because they look too perfect for my taste. I prefer the hodgepodge of ornaments that the kids put all in one spot and the uneven lights.
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My artificial tree has a hodgepodge collection of ornaments as well 👍 Our colored lights are uneven too! We got our tree before they started putting lights on them for you.
 
shannyk said:
I’ve never had an artificial tree because they look too perfect for my taste.
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You have obvioulsy never tried to put one together all by yourself, in the moments before it’s time to leave for Midnight Mass. 😃 :o :christmastree1:
 
We have a fake tree for two reasons. 1) DH has a skin contact allergy to pines, firs, and spruces, and 2) we have cats who like to climb things. There’s not as much for them to grab hold of on the fake tree.
 
We have a fake tree which is pretty cost effective for us and still looks nice. We put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving and take it down for New Years (love those long weekends to decorate and take stuff down!). 👍
 
Broke down and bought an artificial tree last year. Had the real thing for 19 years, then last year, I think the aliens abducted all the street corner and vacant lot tree sellers. All we could find was what they had at Allsups, Wal*Mart and Lowe’s… and the pickings were mighty slim! Nothing that looked halfway decent for under $50 (and we like to set our tree up on Dec. 6 for St. Nicholas Day and take it down on Jan. 7, the day after Epiphany) and not one tree we saw looked like it’d make it through the weekend!

We found a beautiful 7" Scotch pine artificial tree at Wal*Mart that looked very real (that associate’s discount came in handy for a $150 tree!) and that will be used for years to come. My SIL gave us pine scented potpourri and when we’re in the mood, we turn the burner on for a while and fill the house with “Christmas tree” fragrance.

We like LOTS of ornaments, too! for the last seven years, after my BIL’s wife passed away (she was only 28 and left three little ones behind–ages 2, 4 and 7 at the time) we’ve gone hunting for Hope ornaments. That was her name and every year, we try to add a new ornament to each of our trees with her name on it. The variety we’ve amassed over the years is amazing.

Last year, after my FIL passed away, we tried to do the same with “Dad” ornaments, but everything we found was “cheesy”. And the angel we always used on our trees didn’t look quite right on our new artificial tree. So my DH found one of those unfinished wood star-shaped plaques at Wal-Mart, used our son’s wood-burning tool to burn “Dad” into the star and stained it. And that’s what we use on the top of our tree. We went from having an angel on our tree to having a saint (sorry if that sounds presumptuous, but you had to know my FIL and after the beautiful death he had, I can’t help but feel that way!)
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
What I’d like to get buy but DH won’t let me is a shades of the 1950s flocked tree with an old-fashioned color wheel, or perhaps fiber-optic lights.
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That reminds me of my grandma’s silver tinsel tree with blue ornaments. It was kinda sorta psychadelic sixties though… . Must be why I twitch every time I see blue light specials. :bluelite: :bluelite: :bluelite:
:christmastree1:

Actually, I’d like one like you want - bubble lights, though?
 
That reminds me of my grandma’s silver tinsel tree with blue ornaments. It was kinda sorta psychadelic sixties though… . Must be why I twitch every time I see blue light specials
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We had one of those back in the 60s. What were my parents thinkin??? I was just a wee lad back then but I knew what was goin on. “Hey dad reckon we oughta get some pink flamingos to with our Christmas tree?” “Be quiet, it’s what your momma wanted”

We even had one of those rainbow light things that rotated around. It would stay blue a minute, then went red, yellow and green. Instead of Christmas looked like the fair was in town at our house.

Blue-that was a good Christmas Tree story.
 
I love the scent and feel of real trees decorated for Christmas, but it is terribly sad to dispose of them once Christmas has passed. It is much more practical, kinder to the environment, and less depressing (in my opinion) to keep and decorate a fake Christmas tree every year. Besides, here in Japan it is next to impossible to find real Christmas trees for sale. One good idea, if it is possible at your home, is to decorate a living tree in your yard and use that as your real Christmas tree and keep a smaller fake tree inside your house for Christmas morning.
 
joamy said:
That reminds me of my grandma’s silver tinsel tree with blue ornaments. It was kinda sorta psychadelic sixties though… . Must be why I twitch every time I see blue light specials. :bluelite: :bluelite: :bluelite:
:christmastree1:

Actually, I’d like one like you want - bubble lights, though?
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OOOOoooh, bubble lights! LOVE bubble lights! But not on the tree… we lined 'em up in the front window!
 
The trees grow in the backyard. It is real easy. The nieces and nephews really like getting the Christmas trees, too.
 
BamaRider said:
We had one of those back in the 60s. What were my parents thinkin??? I was just a wee lad back then but I knew what was goin on. “Hey dad reckon we oughta get some pink flamingos to with our Christmas tree?” “Be quiet, it’s what your momma wanted”
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
We even had one of those rainbow light things that rotated around. It would stay blue a minute, then went red, yellow and green. Instead of Christmas looked like the fair was in town at our house.

Good Lord, I remember those things! One of our neighbors did the silver tree, silver ornaments and the rotating light wheel. All that was missing was the disco ball hanging from the ceiling!

Blue-that was a good Christmas Tree story.
:thankyou:
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joamy said:
That reminds me of my grandma’s silver tinsel tree with blue ornaments. It was kinda sorta psychadelic sixties though… . Must be why I twitch every time I see blue light specials. :bluelite: :bluelite: :bluelite:
:christmastree1:

Actually, I’d like one like you want - bubble lights, though?
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Why am I suddenly reminded of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”? 😃

Lucy van Pelt: “Get the biggest aluminum tree you can find, Charlie Brown, maybe painted pink.”
 
Why am I suddenly reminded of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”?
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Our first tree was a Charlie Brown tree. Our apt was small and we had just got back from our honeymoon, so it was not that big a priority, as long as he had one. Any of y’all ever have charlie brown tree? Why?

One of these days I’ll tell y’all how we spent our first Christmas Eve. We had been married all of 6 days at the time.
 
BamaRider said:
Our first tree was a Charlie Brown tree. Our apt was small and we had just got back from our honeymoon, so it was not that big a priority, as long as he had one. Any of y’all ever have charlie brown tree? Why?

One of these days I’ll tell y’all how we spent our first Christmas Eve. We had been married all of 6 days at the time.
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You mean the big, shiny, pink aluminum tree, or the little bitty tree that can barely hold up an ornament? 😃

We had the latter for several years, a three-foot pre-lit table topper tree that we bought in our first place (a one-bedroom apartment that we shared with two cats). It was just the right size for the cats to knock it over weekly.
 
BamaRider said:
Our first tree was a Charlie Brown tree. Our apt was small and we had just got back from our honeymoon, so it was not that big a priority, as long as he had one. Any of y’all ever have charlie brown tree? Why?
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When I was in college I used to have Charlie Brown trees all the time, because I used to take the branches that fell from the evergreens in the park and make them into Christmas trees. They were pretty big branches, and had the advantage of being free for the taking.
 
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