When you get your Christmas tree up, post pictures!

It's starting to get that time of year. I get mine going early because I have to crawl up in the garage attic and pull all the boxes down. Also, it helps that the tree is fake! It does however come down the day after New Years.

-Ron-

Love your tree!! We won't have any company this year, and no kiddies around, so we may not put ours up, so I look forward to seeing the pictures posted here. Your's is truly gorgeous! Thanks for the pic. Lou

R that is early I do get mine up after Thanksgiving - the day after!!! But it also comes down the day after Christmas LOL

Great tree!!!

You have a lovely tree, Ron. I like the mix of ornaments. It feels very homey.

I put my tree up just after December 14th (my birthday) and take it down the day after New Year's. I can't seem to get my mind around setting up the tree any sooner. My husband and I go to a u-pick and cut our own. We live in "Christmas Tree Land", so it's pretty easy to get a fresh one! : )

Rhonda

Ron lovely tree, great assortment of ornaments.

I am leaving in the morning, am now at my son and DIL , who are giving me this great cruise to the west Caribbean. There will be eight of us in our little group. Son, DIL, their four (one teenager, and three adult children) my daughter and myself.

So not much up yet in the way of Christmas decorations. Most of the outside lights are in place, the fellow who works for me does that. They are up because it is much easier to put them in place before there is a lot of snow. Not turned on yet tho.

DonnaS

Wow, Ron -- beautiful tree! I like how you have put toppers all throughout the tree. We put ours up in the wee hours Saturday morning after Howie got home from work. We enjoyed our overnight decorating, wrapping up around 6:45am. Yeah, he works an evening shift. ;)

What are those spiraled spikes up top? I like those a lot!

Oh come on Lou. I don't care if I'm the only one who sees it. I will always have a tree. I just love looking at the lights and decorations. Very nice tree Ron. As Kimberley said we put ours up last night we will have to get pictures up.

This message was edited Nov 20, 2005 1:57 AM

you all are hysterical!!!! already have trees up!!!

ron, love your tree. are the decorations antique? would you please post a close-up of the tree?

howie & gw, where is the picture of your tree?

belinda

This message was edited Nov 20, 2005 10:46 AM

Oh PLEASE!!!!! The fact that all the stores had Xmas decorations up right alongside Halloween decorations made me positively nauseous!!
Except for the obvious early start on the $$commercialism$$ of it - I cannot see why we can't enjoy each holiday without feeling forced to jumpstart to the next one.

I mean, I still - heaven forbid!!! - have my Thanksgiving pumpkin & Indian Corn decorations out by the door.

The Xmas season for me doesn't begin until December does. That's when I'll spend a lovely day out tree-hunting (I always get a real tree) & picking up my pine roping & wreaths.

All good things in time - lol!!!

I have to say upon closer look are the bottom all red balls?
That is gorgeous looks like a skirt!!!!!!
Wow I would love to do that but with a 3 month old puppy think it maybe dangerous this year LOL
YES close up of some of the ornaments please getting some wonderful ideas!!!

I am allergic to real pine scent, so I use artificial trees. Sometimes you don't have a choice.

I have 6 artificial trees and I will be putting them up very soon. I do not enjoy decorating for Easter, Halloween, or Thanksgiving so I don't do it. I do love decorating for patriotic holidays and Christmas and I would keep my Christmas decorations up all year if I could. I LOVE it!!! We will be putting up the living room tree tomorrow or Tuesday so we can get our Christmas picture taken and get the cards ready (I make them myself and need the picture to inspire me). The rest of the trees will go up next weekend at the latest and stay until it gets embarrassing LOL.

Can't wait to see more pictures!

Rachel

will have to wait for mine until after Thanksgiving LOL
But will not be as impressive as Ron's or your's I am sure!!!
Just a tree decorated by the 5 year old mostly LOL

I'm sure Henry will do a great job getting it ready and Skillet will do a great job of undoing it LOL

Can't wait to see what the 2 of them come up with for you:)

Rachel

Oh it should be interesting this year! Opus ignores the tree but not so sure Skillet will.
Thank you!!! Henry takes great pleasure in placing his ornaments- may have some funny ideas as to where they should go but I let him choose!!!!
It is fun we should be getting our tree Friday I do love to get ready for all the holidays and do it early but once the day has passed i am just as fast to get it all down and move onto the next LOL.
OCD can be a hazard to those decorations that might want to hang out longer. Even have Henry in the same frame of mind- the day after we spend putting gifts in their rightful places and gettting all other stuff put away! Poor thing only five and will tisk tisk someone in Feb. for having a wreath on their door ROTFLOL

Oh I agree with you re: "to each his own" as far as the decorating goes.

I just really really miss "way back when" each holiday had it's own "season". You never saw Xmas things or heard/saw Xmas commercials or carols on the TV/radio until the day after Thanksgiving.

Now, I can't believe that a day BEFORE Halloween, the Xmas "buy buy buy/gimme gimme gimme" commercials were already spewing forth. It's obnoxious.

I agree. by the time the actual holiday comes around, I'm sick of it.

PS: I'm gonna scream if I see any St. Valentine's stuff before X/mas even gets here.

Here's some closeups of the tree.

Also, let me say this--I'm not big on some of the excess commercialization of Christmas, but I do like to put up a tree for when friends and family drop by. I did put up the tree extra early this year. Usually I do it about a week after Thanksgiving. This year I made an exception because it takes me 2-3 days to do this and I will be really, really busy the first week of December.

I've been collecting some of these decorations for almost 40 years.

-Ron-

Some more...

And some more....

This is the last.

Rob, they're a wonderful collection! We've been getting a few blown glass ornaments each year, just inexpensive ones that catch our fancy. Looks like you subscribe to the same school of thought we do: ecclectic is good, and you can't have too many on the tree! :D I'll get shots of our tree up sometime today.

I was raised with an emphasis on church rather than Santa - the tree didn't go up until after Dec 20th and stayed up until Jan 6th (the twelve days). I still do it that way. I "Christmas shop" all year - finding things that I want to give as gifts. The one advantage for me of the early displays of Christmas goodies is in my crafting. I start looking for things to use as soon as the stores start putting their stuff out. I start looking for a tree around August as I can get it here on the property. Drives DH nuts 'cause by the time I'm ready to go cut it, I have at least ten selected as good "possibilities", and I go round and round trying to decide which one is the best. I still haven't decided this year if I want to try for another 11' tree, or stick to a 6 or 7'. I did the 11' one two years ago and I wish I had pictures of the looks on people's faces when they walked into the room. All the young kids just stood there and stared, their eyes like saucers! It was great fun, but a lot of work (and 2 ladders) to get it decorated. If I find out in time about family travel plans in time and who all will be here, I may go for the big one again.

I would like to see a return of the "spirit" of Christmas, too. I do miss the thrill of the early December excitement - knowing that Christmas is almost here! With the arrival of displays before Halloween, it seems to lose some of the beauty by the time it actually is the Christmas season.

Meanwhile - the tree waits until the last minute in this house. (I'm not real sure how much of that is tradition or just me running too far behind schedule to get it done any sonner!)
ginni

ron, what a beautiful collection. i saw some that i have. i really love the pigs and octopus. in the third picture, is the ornament behind the girl, an old wired ornament ? belinda



This message was edited Nov 20, 2005 6:03 PM

great collection!!!
I put my tree like I said after thanksgiving but when I was growing up my parents had a great tradition of putting up the tree but no decorations until we kids woke up Christmas morning- wish I had started that before my son already got used to decorating it.
What fun to go to sleep and whne you get up the whole room was beautiful because "Santa and his elves had brought Christmas"

Nothing on the tree and poof it was like magic!!!!

Ron your tree is just 'glistening' with beauty!!! I love it!!! You have some very beautiful and unusual tree ornaments. ;)


Lin

Anne that is so sweet! We had an artificial tree but they didn't always put it up. Mom made some huge red bags and put our names on them with glitter and glue and 'Santa' would leave our presents in those. Daddy used to show us the first phone bill after Christmas and tell us it was a bill from Santa LOL. We couldn't read yet so it was just a list of letters and numbers 2 or 3 pages long, we fell for that for years!

Ron, I love your ornaments! It is a beautiful tree, I would leave it up until March (I have done that before and mine wasn't so pretty)

Rachel

Rachel I love it!! having a 5 year old santa is so alive here !!! It is sad when that goes away so I treasure each year I get to go back and have that childhood dream that the big guy is watching over us and going to pop dwon the chimney the24th of December LOL

Hi, Breezymeadow.

I know there are some people who use the term "Xmas" without giving it a second thought, but I think if one does think about it, it is the supreme irony to lament the "commercialization" of the holidays and then to take "Christ," Who is THE reason for the season, out of Christmas by calling it "Xmas."

Best wishes and a thankful Thanksgiving to you.

Thanksgiving, by the way, is also a holiday that factual history bears out to be about giving thanks to God.

Sorry if this comes off as didactic. I only wanted it to be a reminder to anyone who has forgotten the reason for both Christmas and Thanksgiving. The former is not about particularly about trees or presents, and the latter is not particularly about eating and football.

Ron, thank you for posting your pictures. Your decorations are wonderful. It is great to see a tree. Here, there is no commercialization becaue Christmas isnt celebrated, so I do enjoy seeing all the trees that the members post.

Keep em coming!

Hope you all have a good thanksgiving, nothing for us today, he handfull of americans in Bodrum were going to have a turkey dinner, but with the bird flu, there are no turkeys available, so we blew it off, then decided to go out for chinese.....But of course the kids are in school, and we all work, the pharmacy is open till 8, so it wont be an early thanksgiving, and my daughter has basketball practice and she wont be getting out till after 9:30, I dont know, we might just forget chinese too....

(((Breezy))))
HAPPY T-Day to you alll!!!!! Will have my tree up soon and will post it LOL

Mags

RWiz, :O this is me gazing at your beautiful tree and all those gorgeous ornaments. Soon more pictures will join yours I'm sure. Gonna get on decorating the tree here later today.

Per the Xmas discussion; my local paper has had some write ups in the editorial section on this very topic. The following is an excerpt from a letter today: Xmas, according to the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, has been used in English since 1551. The X is a symbol for Christ from the Greek letter chi (X) which is the initial letter of Christos or Christ.

Personally I did not know this before I saw it in the paper today. But, I have at times used the term Xmas and have never thought of it as anything but the day of the Christ child's birth. The fact that the X is usually capitalized indicates it is intended as a proper noun (name). I would not argue that the term Xmas can be a dilution of the *Reason for the Season* for those who do not believe.

Thanks for that info Merigold. Very interesting.

You are welcome Breezymeadow. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone.

Thank you merigold - I thought there was a connection, but couldn't remember just how it worked.
DH is on the way to pick up my Mom who will join us for the day. I will spend this wonderful day with the two most important people in my life, and I give thanks for all my good fortune. My Mom is healthy and active, living a very full life - but I know that I will not always have her so close. She just celebrated her 93rd birthday, and I want to make the most of all the time I have with her. I want to know in my heart that when she leaves this world for a better one, I will be able to rejoice in her good fortune and be thankful for all the time I did have with her - no regrets or guilt. No lost opportunities to be with her. Just love and peace for her and me.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! God bless us all.
ginni

Beautiful ginni!!!

Merigold thanks for the definition!

Look, Christ IS Christmas. I'm a believer, and I also avoid using Xmas. But please, please don't let's turn this into an argument. I doubt the Christ I serve would want us to show anything less than love and forgiveness toward one another, just as He did for us. Especially when it comes to His name.

I'll gladly continue the discussion with anyone who's interested in my opinion. But through Dmail would be much wiser. You know where to reach me.

This thread was an invitation from Ron to post pictures of our Christmas trees. I'm not interested in further discussion of terminology. Ron I hope you will hang in there and be patient while the rest of us work on our trees! Maridell

Wanted to add a note that this post was not directed toward naps invitation for further discussion, but previous discussion that has since been removed.

This message was edited Dec 11, 2005 10:20 AM

I'm sure I've read that in some countries "X" stands for Christ on the cross. I'd look into it tonight but I'm exhausted. I'd rather wait for December for the start of the promotions, sales, etc. and I prefer thanking God daily, not having one day set aside, but to each his/her own.