How do you decorate your Christmas/holiday trees? Do you do only bulbs and make it look like a Hallmark/Pinterest trees? Or do you use an assortment of all different ornaments? Do you/did you let our kids help decorate? I’m surprised how many people I know, don’t let their kids help decorate the tree…or do a Hallmark type perfect tree every year. Our tree has never been perfect and I like putting up ornaments that we’ve collected over the years. Yeah we’ve gotten rid of some and I’ve passed some on to D and S, cuz the tree was getting so full, but I like the jumble of ornaments. Not trying to judge, just like hearing what everyone’s tree/holiday decorating style is…
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Our tree is like yours. A wide variety of ornaments collected over the years. Many of them belonged to my parents and came from their (primarily international) travels. My mother always bought a Christmas ornament (or something that could be used as a Christmas ornament) everywhere she went. Our Sunday School class did an ornament swap forever, and we have many fun ones from that as well. And, of course, we have some ornaments that ds made in early elementary years. I like an eclectic tree.
We used to have two trees, and when we did, one was “themed” by color - it only had white and gold ornaments on it. We had gone back down to one, large tree before we downsized.
I have a friend who just posted pictures on FB of her six themed trees. It makes me tired just thinking about it, but she loves them. She has two more but didn’t put them up this year. Another friend used to put up 13 trees, but she is now down to 9 since she “downsized” with a move.
I am one who is completely over stuff, and we did a major downsize three years ago. At that point we got rid of our tree (it was 12 feet tall, which wouldn’t work in a condo with 8-foot ceilings) but kept all of our ornaments. They were the only things in our home that ds requested we not purge with the downsize. We haven’t had a tree the last three years but bought a 7 1/2’ pencil tree this year. It won’t hold all we have.
Ds is here for an extended stay, and we waited until his arrival to put it up. He has always helped with our traditional tree. However, when we had the gold and white tree, I did do that one myself.
Fun topic!
We always involved the kids growing up and now it has become a tradition to carve out time one evening before Christmas and decorate the tree and the whole living room together. We put on Christmas CDs, our favorite is Straight No Chaser, and spend the evening decorating and singing. I thought the kids would tire of it as teenagers but they still love it and honestly it is always my favorite thing we do during the holidays. We’ve lived in many places and have collected ornaments everywhere we have been. I always try to buy an ornament or two any time we travel so our tree is very eclectic. It’s fun to try to remember where we got each ornament and we all have our favorites. This will be the first year that neither my S or D will be home to decorate so that’s a little sad but thanks for this thread, such great memories!
Our tree is a hodgepodge of everything: a zillion Hallmark ornaments purchased by older relatives for each year of the children’s early lives; masterpieces created at preschool or elementary school; and true keepsakes from vacations, to remember lost pets, etc. Lots of color. DH and I disagree on what color lights we should use, but our newer tree lets us switch between white and multicolored.
I love decorating our trees! I downsized after my divorce to only 3 trees instead of 5… I thought I was holiday crazy but not as much as some of you and your friends! I typically have a formal tree (Hallmark/Pinterest, I guess???) in the living/dining, a family memory tree (kid-made ornaments and those collected on family travels) on the landing at the top of stairs and a pencil tree in the keeping room with ornaments I got from my parents. One day I hope to bring back the sports and bar coaster themed tree I used to have in the basement game room. (My dad gave us ornaments from our alma mater annually for 30+ years. I collected bar coasters when traveling for work and fun and used a hole punch.) My D is not nearly as into it anymore (although she always helped when she was younger) nor is my SO. They help with the boxes, hang a couple of ornaments then listen to holiday music and make fun of me while I decorate. And I love every second of it.
6 and 13 trees?! wow! They must have a big house! I don’t have the time and patience for that! We like to get Christmas ornaments when we travel…it’s fun!
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Yep! Sounds just like ours! I like the hodgepodge!
Two trees! One is our family tree and has ornaments from a lot of places.gifts, vacations, Family ornaments.
Second tree is mine and has 40 years of decorations from students and colleagues from my school working years.
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Our tree and its jillion ornaments are a reflection of our 43 years together, pre- and post-kid, but I hate putting it up, so that job has always belonged to our son and DH on the weekend after Thanksgiving. Last year and this year, the task fell to DH alone as our son was unable to come home for TG. This year, for the first time ever, we won’t see him for Christmas either, so the tree is all the decorating we’ve done as DH would be sad without it. Frankly, without our son, I don’t care about the holiday at all.
My kids helped decorate in theory, but in practice they lost interest quickly. We have ornaments we collected in Germany, ones the kids made, ones I inherited from my parents and ones I picked up at various craft fairs. We usually put it up a week or two before Christmas and keep it until at least January 6. Growing up we always had some kind of tree - though one year (in Somalia) it was the office flagpole with green ribbons pinned to an upside down round table top and another year my mother put tree shaped green paper behind the shelves of a built in bookcase and we put the ornaments on the shelves. In Japan the consulate apartment had 15 foot ceilings and we had a perfectly enormous tree so we’ve always had too many ornaments since.
It’s all I can do to deal with one tree and our house is not very big.
Decorating has always been a family event. I can’t imagine not having D help, even when she was little.
Definitely not a hallmark tree either. Hodgepodge of ornaments. My favorites are our angels and travel ornaments (we have a family tradition of buying ornaments whenever we visit a new place).
My only issue now is that I don’t have room for our second tree which is where all the homemade ornaments were hung. D refuses to put them on the main tree so I have to sneak a few on when she isn’t looking.
I’m not a pinterest perfect type, just don’t roll that way…
We have two trees and a wide variety of ornaments. We used to decorate one tree with the kid’s ornaments and the other ornaments went on the other tree. Now that D is married and has a house, she has her box of ornaments so we don’t do that anymore.
We used to do it together when kids were young. Great fun. But I can’t do it myself.
One of my favorite memories was when HS son showed up with friends in tow but i was so tired and downcast. No lights, no decs on tree and it just wasn’t happening if I had to do it. Think they had it decorated in 15 min. Lights included. 4 or 5 boys. Not exactly the perfect job (or even close!) but I can’t tell you how happy I was. Didn’t touch one thing.
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Two trees at my house. It takes 7-8 hours to get them into the house in the right spot (other things have to be moved), lights checked and decorated. The living room tree is white lights and nicer ornaments - Christopher Radkos, mercury glass balls, etc. The family room tree is colored lights and a hodge podge of ornaments - some made by kids, needlepoint stockings I have made, some felt & bead ornaments made at Girl Scouts when I was young (the nicest are the ones my mom made as the troop leader), and a whole hodgepodge of other ornaments from travels and memories.
The trees are my favorite part of Christmas and I won’t specify the exact day, but they went up before Halloween in the crazy covid year so I can milk all the joy out of them that I can before they come down. D & SIL may make a one day trip here a few days after Christmas, but they are iffy due to rising infection numbers. It may be that I am the only one who sees my trees this year - so odd! I look forward to downsizing in 2022 when I retire, except for figuring out how to still use all or most of my Christmas ornaments.
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One tree. Always a “real” tree. Hodgepodge because to me the tree is a story - from the “Baby’s First Christmas” to the clothespin reindeer ornaments to ornaments H and got for our wedding (late November wedding). The kids have always insisted the tree have colored lights so colored lights it is. Lights and ornaments. A tree skirt that is divided in three sections which turned into gift assignment areas. 
Star on top - had an angel for decades but she went kaput a few years ago. Admittedly she was a little creepy…
Oldest D has taken a bunch of her ornaments but I have a few of hers still. S hasn’t wanted to take his - his wife is used to that “Hallmark” tree decorating.
I really want to get a woven tree collar (instead of a skirt). I like the neat look of them. We will need to get a slimmer tree stand first.
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Ours is a hodgepodge of ribbons and ornaments. It’s very pretty though. My DD used to help when she was younger. Now she has to be in the mood. She didn’t help this year.
I think my favorite tree was my first one post-college. I bought a bunch of German statice and tucked bunches into the tree to mimic snowfall. No ornaments, so I made a bunch of origami cranes.
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Ours is a hodgepodge as well; it’s a mix of the wooden garland and ornaments from my family tree growing up, ornaments given to us over the years to mark special occasions (like 6 new house ornaments, it’s a running joke every time we move), all the annual ones from grandparents and then some quirky ones like Doctor Who, Marvel and Broadway musicals (whatever DD was really into that year). It’s quirky, sentimental and beautiful to us. I always do the lights, garland and my childhood ornaments; then we hold a family decorating night where we drink cocoa, eat cookies and watch a funny Christmas movie while putting up the family ornaments.
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I adore my Christmas trees. They make me so happy every year, which is why I tend to put them up early. I call them my memory trees. But you won’t see them in any fashion magazine. I am a ornament and light junkie. We have a 9 foot tree in the foyer. That one has white lights - I forget how many strands, but it’s in the 12-18 range. I always lose count, but it takes 2 hours to string. The upstairs tree is a 26 year old 7.5’ tree with 8 strands of colored lights.
Ornaments? I’m pretty certain I have over a thousand on the 2 trees. They are covered and then some. Some are the generic shiny ones from walmart, target, and lowes. Most we have collected over our entire lives. When the kids were born, I started making picture ornaments of them each year. They are fancier now in the digital age. Wherever we go on a trip, we make sure to get one and add that to the tree. The downstairs tree has most of the nicer ornaments. The upstairs tree has most of the ones that the kids (and H & I) made growing up. We even have a plastic Rudolph head that was on top of a plastic candy filled cane. I chewed the nose of it when I was 4. It gets a special place, along with a super fragile string & glue contraption that H made in kindergarten. Both trees also have cheesy plastic/paper/ornaments on the lower branches for the cats to knock off. They have so much fun with that every year, though attacking the Christmas tree skirt is the preferred activity.
Help? I welcome any help from the kids or H. But usually they are like “Eh. You can do it.” If they help, they might last 20 minutes. LOL.
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We have one tree that is decorated with a hodgepodge of ornaments. This year DD is bringing her 7 month old kitten for Christmas. We only put up non-breakable ornaments.
