I’m just so over it. Maybe if it was 3-4 months after Thanksgiving. Even then, I’m just SO sick of hauling it upstairs, those awful lights….boxes of ornaments, then hauling them back downstairs. No one helps me for at least 12-13 years. Then sweeping the needles. I just don’t want to do it anymore.
But I know there’s the unspoken “but you just stay home”, although he wouldn’t dare say it. I did this working full time raising kids. Yes, I’m retired….but he didn’t help me back then either except before kids.
I don’t mind decorating the house actually, garland, big things hanging on walls, sitting on table. I like it festive and cozy too.
I used to be all about the tree and when the kids left for college, we downsized to a very small table top fake tree (in the past, we always had a 7-8’ real tree). I wasn’t sure how the kids would react when they came home and saw the tiny tree and it was a non-issue. I put approx 12-18 ornaments on it and it looks good. We all have a few favorite ornaments and those are the ones I make sure have a place on the tree.
I love the tree (we actually have two every year), but my H spearheads it & does much of the work involved with the trees. However, I vividly recall when my mom was d-o-n-e. She & my dad were living in Florida by then, and she just put out a couple Christmas things that were easily stored in a closet. If it brings you more aggravation than joy, it’s 100% okay to skip it. After all, it’s not the tree that makes Christmas. Hugs to you.
We are taking the kids on a trip in December, so we simply can’t do the “cut down a tree” excursion we normally do.
I had no idea my kid (28) would be unhappy when I told him we were getting a 3.5’ table top tree. It’s like I told him there’s no Santa .
I will explain again that we could get a 7.5 foot Balsam Hill instead, but then the tree excursion is “gone forever.”
Stay tuned for updates :).
I’ve got newer cats so last year I ditched the tree as the year before they wouldn’t leave it alone and it wasn’t fair to keep yelling at the cat for doing normal cat things. Last year I decorated my mantel and bought 2 nutcrackers to guard either side of my front door. It looks Christmas enough.
I have had a real tree for decades, but we went to an artificial tree two years ago. I miss the pine smell, but it is so much easier to deal with. I’ve also cut down on the decorating some so I don’t have so much to pack up after the holiday. It’s made it a bit less stressful.
I secretly envy those people who have a tree closet and just wheel it out in all its glory, ready to go, then right back in it goes!
My family won’t have it! They insist on cutting down the tree each year. We don’t even spend the holidays at home! On really tight years we have compromised and only put up the lights. But we have a crazy tree with a mishmash of ornaments that we’ve collected randomly over the early years, including terribly ugly things the kids made in preschool. That is the upside… the unboxing memory lane.
Cat in Christmas tree! Yep! But that’s not the reason we might not put up a tree this year. Just DH and I will be here for the holiday. I’ll decorate the house well enough…but the tree is up in the air.
We will be at D and SIL’s for Christmas this year so I’d be happy to forgo having a tree – but I also anticipate that H will push to have one. We’ll see.
I get it. We still Get a real tree. I enjoy it enough when it’s up but it’s the PROCESS of up and down that I dread. And besides getting it in the tree stand it’s “Christmas tree by abasket”.
A piece of me wants to be the person who buys the 2-3 ft real tree from the grocery store and sets it on a credenza. That I could handle.
This is the year when I am really contemplating ditching it. We have a large Balsam Hill and a big collection of ornaments, many that we collected on our various trips over 30+ years of marriage. I used to love pulling out those boxes of memories. But not as much any more, and I HATE having to disassemble the tree and pack them all up again. We are leaving on the 24th to spend Christmas and New Years in another state with our S, DIL and GD, and the thought of having to come back home to the tree and the work of taking it down is less than appealing. I feel ready for something smaller, for sure. Have not yet discussed with H - who LOVES the tree - and D, who will be here with us for the week leading up to Christmas and who will not be doing decorations in her apt. I think I will be overruled, but we’ll see!
At one time, we had three artificial trees after learning that H is allergic to the real ones. When we first moved to our current area we had a temporary house and didn’t haul any Christmas trees here. I put a tree shape ornament holder on a table with a dozen of my favorite ornaments. We did the same the next year since D and her family spend Christmas Eve with her in-laws every year and Christmas day at home by themselves. GD was too young to notice the lack of tree at our house. We both appreciated the ease of decorating and then packing away.
When GD turned three, we were living in our new home and bought a small artificial tree, about 7 ft., then used maybe 1/4 of our ornaments. Everything else was donated.
Assuming we live that long, we’ll continue to use this tree until the GDs are out of school then give them whatever ornaments they’d like. After that, we won’t do a tree.
We also donated most of our outdoor decorations. Now we have the tacky inflatables that folks love to hate, but the little kids just love seeing Mickey and Minnie in Santa hats and Olaf with his silly grin. They pack up and store much easier than our former decorations.
We almost always had a potted tree. The previous one had served us 3 years until it got too tall for the house. It survived being on the deck in full sun during a heatwave ! We named it Survivor after that summer. Now that Survivor is happily planted in the forest behind our house, we needed a new one. So instead of getting a small one, we got the biggest ass Christmas tree the nursery had. Getting that sucker in and out of the house will be an exercise of serious muscle! I actually don’t like to decorate for the holidays, but I love putting ornaments on the tree! I get a mug of mulled wine and off I go! I stopped wrestling with strings of lights and use clip on “candles.” The batteries in those last about 2-3 weeks, long enough for us to enjoy the tree indoors (and for the tree to not go out of its dormancy).
For many years when I lived in a tiny apartment, I had the cutest Norfolk Island Pine tree. I loved that tree. It on,y held a few ornaments, but I didn’t really have very many.
Now, I have enough ornaments to decorate two trees, because we used to get a real tree in addition to my beautiful fake tree.
DH and I haven’t really talked about this…yet. But we won’t put a tree up at all until at least the 15th of December.
Just sayin’ … We quit waking up at my parents’ house the year my mom quit putting up a tree. I still wanted Christmas-morning magic for my still-little kids so we always spent Christmas Eve somewhere else.
I’ve spoken often about my love for my Xmas “memory” tree. It’s a behemoth artificial one that goes in our foyer, covered by hundreds of ornaments, most of which are pictures of our kids over the years, places we’ve been, or the hallmark-y ones that meant something to us at the time. It takes forever to set up, but I usually do it around thanksgiving (or before) and it stays up until new years. I also do a ton of other decorating around the house.
But this year, we are our den is getting a refresh. We had it painted 2 weeks ago, but the carpet isn’t being installed until Dec 11th. The new couch is currently sitting in our foyer and most of the den stuff is scattered around our house. I can’t put the tree up in the foyer. Even if I could get it to fit, it’s make it even harder when the carpet is installed.
But putting it up dec 14th just to take it down a couple of weeks later? Ugh. So I’m thinking of keeping it up through MLK weekend. We are having a big milestone bday celebration for my Dad that weekend. But keeping it up that late is frowned upon around my city.
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! We named it Survivor after that summer. Now that Survivor is happily planted in the forest behind our house, we needed a new one. So instead of getting a small one, we got the biggest ass Christmas tree the nursery had. Getting that sucker in and out of the house will be an exercise of serious muscle! I actually don’t like to decorate for the holidays, but I love putting ornaments on the tree! I get a mug of mulled wine and off I go! I stopped wrestling with strings of lights and use clip on “candles.” The batteries in those last about 2-3 weeks, long enough for us to enjoy the tree indoors (and for the tree to not go out of its dormancy).