Putting up the Xmas Decorations? We wanted to escape it all this year, but it’s just too expensive to go somewhere warm for the 4 of us. Now with the kids older, the magic is gone and it just seems like a lot of work and money spent. I know I sound humbug already, but that’s how I feel.
Do you have to put them up? Can you just put up a few favorites maybe? I have never decorated on a big scale because I don’t like taking it down. We do a tree and a wreath and stockings - I guess that is still a good bit though.
You don’t sound like a humbug
Speaking of humbugs -one of my favorite things to do to get into the spirit -listen to a recorded version of “A Christmas Carol”
I hear you. I am keeping up the tradition, so I could be ready for my grandchildren. Don’t want to get out of practice here even though we are still few years away.
Why don’t you get a smaller tree (table top tree) and just few favorites as mentioned by veruca.
The Christmas season is the best season of all. From now until the new year, it is filled with love and joy and family time. Do not let go of it. It is a small price to pay (work and money) for the huge reward you get.
Happy Holidays!
Like veruca I have cut way back as my kids have grown and I am working a lot. We put up 2 trees and just a few other decorations.
One way to easily decorate is with poinsettias. I buy a few large ones for my foyer and kitchen and they really brighten up the room.
@conmama I’ve found that the magic is different. Over the past few years, we’ve changed up a lot of how we do things and what we use as decorations. It’s still takes work, but is still satisfying. We seem to do less, but still generate a certain amount of mess.
Wow, I thought I was a drag because I am tired of my Christmas decorations. I just want to purge most of what I have and give them to my girls, but realistically not ready. I enjoy having a tree, but now have to get it on my own. I don’t like moving furniture to make room.
long story short, one year we had an emergency and couldnt get the ginormous tree and 500,000 totes of decorations out of the attic so we had to improvise.
i bought a pop up, pre-lit, PRE-DECORATED tree. (brylanehome) it was slightly charlie brownish, but it was the greatest thing ever–it took me probably 5 minutes to put up without help. it wasnt that expensive either. (under $100).
we still use it every year in our family room just for ambiance. its held up great.
its honestly the best invention ever and when the time comes to bah humbug it, i plan to still slap this thing up.
but yes, i’m dreading the rest of it…
Yes! I’m dreading it! Have been for many years. Over the summer I went through all my Christmas decorations and purged the unnecessary. I’m not even sure I’m going to put up everything I kept.
No one helps with the decorating, so it just seems like work. Last year besides the tree, I put up 1/2 the decorations. This year I will just put up less. Evetyone loves the tree, and since I’m on a hiatus from work, I have no excuse. I guess it just as I’m doing it I remember too many Xmas’s past. Maybe I should start a tradition with my GF’s that have no help either. We take turns putting on the ornaments to wine, munchies and music. That would be fun.
Yes, having help makes all the difference! D1 is nearby and likes to help me. Maybe she thinks it won’t get done without her and she’s probably right… ;)) My H is little or no help at all but I do keep trying.
If you don’t have a family member nearby, maybe have a few friends over to help and you can return the favor to each other. Wine, eggnog, happy music, whatever makes you smile could make the progress go along. “Many hands make light work”, as the saying goes.
Wow. So many humbug responses! Come on people, get with the holiday spirit. 
You can’t force it, unfortunately.
Putting up the tree used to be the ex and girls’ event. I have to say the first year I was on my own I was wondering how I was going to get it done, especially with D2 away at school. I found a place online where I could order a tree and they set it up on a stand when delivered, so the only thing we have to do is to decorate. A handyman in my building takes it out for me after xmas. This is our third year doing this. The tree is going to arrive the first week of Dec. I am looking forward to it.
Raising my hand. Never into the task of holiday decorating - inside or out. But I do it! Agreed that I have pared down a bit. The thing I do love to look at I do the most of - lights in lots of places. And the tree of course. A real one. The only thing worse than putting it all up is taking it all down.
Don’t get me wrong once it’s up I like it! However to be perfectly honest, I am not a holiday person. I like everyday regular life and the way my house looks not all dolled up!
And don’t even get me started on Christmas music…
Go minimal! A tree is plenty.
I’ve decided that I really don’t like the clutter of a lot of holiday decorations, so I skip them.
I’m dreading hauling the many boxes out and back to decorate and putting away all of my usual decorations (such work), and I’ll try really hard not to think about putting it all away later (or I might grumble “Bah humbug” between Christmas songs while decorating), but I do love how it all looks when the house is festively decorated, and I do like decorating it.
Unfortunately, I missed warm day opportunities to put lights outside. Maybe I’ll convince my S and H to do that by themselves this year! I’m basically a cold weather wimp.
I used to love Christmas preparations and decorating and entertaining.
Then I started a chocolate business. I had no time to do anything else, because that was the height of my season. Sometimes I had to work until 3 am. I couldn’t go anywhere. My H and S don’t care about festive preparations in the least. It just dragged me down.
I have an extensive collection of pretty spectacular hand-blown and painted glass ornaments, mostly older Radko and Patricia Breen. (I don’t like what either of them is doing now.) Last year we put up the tree. I put the usual tiny white lights on it, and red wire ribbon I use as garland. (It loops into lovely big curls if you keep it rolled up all year.) No ornaments except a gold star on top. I loved it.
I usually have all trees and decorations up by now. I haven’t done a single thing this year. I don’t know what it is- maybe that the kids are only here for a few days each year now, instead of here the whole season to enjoy it with me?
I never really have gone that crazy with Christmas decorations, I have an inflatable bear and snoopy on the front yard and some lights on a tree by our garage door, inside it primarily is the tree. The tree is something I won’t give up on, we have done it every year except the first year we lived in this house (that year the house was under construction, we had a tiny potted tree that is now a giant in our backyard). We try and go every year to cut a tree, or at the least go to a place where the tree farms are and buy a tree there. I was bummed out, we have a double trouble pair of puppies who would like nothing more than to take the tree apart, but I can put it in a family room and keep the door closed.