what type of tree do you put up?

Whatever are you doing that you need a whole bar of soap for pine sap and tar?

Easier to cut a bit from the bottom rather than smushing the top?

After this year, I know how messy and sappy a tree experience can be. We have one of those tree stands where the place drills the hole in the tree and you drop it right in and it stands up perfectly. Well the place broke their drill bit and ours had a hole the size of a pencil eraser, so we ended up drilling our own. Kudos to my DH who made a tapered hole in the tree trunk without wrecking the tree and it stands up pretty darn straight, considering all the drama. Driving back to the place was not really an option, a 50 minute drive one way? Hence...the need for that soap...what a mess!

Hee hee. No, I have the same one I bought 15 years ago. It will last forever.

This message was edited Dec 10, 2009 7:24 PM

Here's the stand I have.

http://www.leevalley.com/gifts/page.aspx?c=1&p=51971&cat=4,104,53211&ap=2

Sap......peanut butter is the gentlest way to get it out of your hair, but straight liquid Tide works miracles and both are always stocked in this house. ^_^

Hope you don't mix them up!

I can't tell you how many times i've had to use them.....lets just say EARLY.

We use a spackle bucket( I wrap Christmas paper around it) filled with sand to hold the tree, holds more water.

that watering system looks pretty good - we have a heavy duty tree stand from HD that is great - i think they still sell it - thinking about rigging that watering system

I have this self watering thingie... we had to put a book under it because our stand is tall like Victors.. it was sitting beneath the water level and would not self feed.. but it works great.. and I hide it behind the tree

http://www.homeproductsnmore.com/Christmas_Tree_Waterer_p/tf-103.htm

I tried something like that one year and it did not work.

Got the lights, star and tinsel garland on. 770 lights.

Star??? Doesn't that go on last?

Last of the lights.

We always do the garland last, after the ornaments.

Garland def after the ornaments, but the angel or star is always the last piece to go on.

Aside from the regular lights, I put on some LED snowflake lights at the top. Looks a bit odd since they are a pure, slightly bluish white, which makes the star look even more yellowish. But i still like it. They look like ice crystals. I would like to get more.

Star goes on right after the lights as it is at the top of the tree. Don't have our tree yet, too early to bring one inside. Garland after ornaments & 'icicles' last of all. We can have them as do not have cats to chew on them.

I bought some "tulip" LED lights this year that are very pretty. They don't look like tulpis but more like a daisy. We got a crooked blue spruce. It took some arranging of the ornaments to make it look more even. Snowman theme this year, I'll post a pic later.

O dear are there Order Rules about how to decorate a tree? I hope not. I specially like when the Seedlings just willynilly fling decorations everywhere and then we all work it out later. Please advise. If there are rules I will follow them sigh. But to be honest I also like to fling decorations willynilly everywhere.

I do ornaments after garland .. guess I don't run with the pack either

I do ornaments after garland too, but before icicles. I put the most precious ones on top, away from kids.

No hard and fast rules, D'nut. I've actually had people ask me the order to decorate a tree. Fling them on willy nilly is good.

Don't do icicles anymore. Too messy and impossible to get off. Town won't take the tree for composting if they're on.

We cut the branches off the tree & use them on the garden so don't have to worry about rules. compost is a better town idea that burning the trees.

i use metal icicles that we re-use every year - and there are rules here on decorating the tree - lights, ornaments, garland, icicles, then the topper in that order.

Somehow, I'm not surprised, Bill. ^_^

Remind me to send you a Jeter ornament.

do not spend too much on it - i may drop it.

my wife was looking through some old pictures of my kids yesterday and cracked up when she saw one of me and a daughter in front of a christmas tree - claimed it looked very familiar.

btw - my xmass present to dave is not commenting on his yankee posts - or does this count as a post?

Tada! It took an hour and a half, but I trimmed off the lower branches, hacked part of the trunk off with a hatchet, wrestled it inside, & decorated it! No breakables on the bottom of the tree----curious grandkids!

Ooops---not a great photo---hacked off top & bottom, but there is a star on top!

That's OK. It's a beautiful tree! Love those curtains too.

We got a Balsam this year, instead of the Frasier. I refer to it as the Buddha Balsam as it is unusually round.

Just beautiful, Louise.

Doesn't Balsam just smell so wonderful. Makes it really seem like Christmas.

We haven't picked out our tree yet.

Thanks Polly! I'll probably go back to the Frasier next year though. The Balsam does lose a lot of needles and we keep the tree up for at least a month. Not sure the Balsam will hold out that long.

Probably not.

That's why I love the Frasier. Have it up for well over three weeks and it hardly drops any.

pretty trees!!!.. even with the cold temps Randy got a lot done yesterday.. Santa is now flying over the front yard with three reindeer .. on the cable we had the big ghouls on for halloween ... I hope we will be done decorating today... wishful thinking though

Nice!

oh well.. so much for that.. the rain is not allowing us to finish today outside.. but supposed to be nice tomorrow.. Randy put a few small things out this morning.. and the big light arch we made

Thats gonna be a sight to see. Can't wait to see it.