I still remember the first Christmas after my wife and I were married. After we decorated the tree I realized that it was half my decorations, and half my wife’s decorations (we were old enough to each already have a set of tree decorations). I still every year remember where the decorations came from, but now at least 1/3 are ones that we got after we were together.
We have however switched to an artificial tree. This is easier, saves a bit of money, is better for allergies, and does not require killing any actual trees. Once it is decorated it still is special to us.
We had real trees for years, but it has just become easier to have an artificial one. The decorating the tree went from Fallgirl and kids to just Fallgirl. I’m over it. H will insist we put it up and S will be here and he will insist on it…If it were just me I would buy a few big poinsettias (Costco ones are great) and that would be my decor.
FWIW - we never did the cut your own tree until the last 2 years we lived in the old house. D and SIL weren’t there to help so it was H, S and me. Truthfully, it was “meh”.
The city won’t care. The people here are put it up early, take it down early folks. New Year’s Eve is late! And make comments about people who keep it up. But yeah, I shouldn’t care.
Our kids gradually took over putting up the Christmas tree. It’s only 4’ and artificial but takes up a significant part of the living room so we tend to put it up fairly late so it’s not in the way. We take it down before D house back to LA in January.
DH is allergic so we switched to an artificial several years ago. I always used to worry about the house burning down with the fresh tree. We have had a Balsam Hill “flip” tree for about 5 years. It is very easy to roll in a set up. It is prelit and requires very little “fluffing”. And takes up very little room in the garage. When the kids first moved out decorating the tree made me sad, but now that we have grandkids I look forward to it.
So a couple posts above maybe hit the nail on the head for some of us. Tree when the kids were younger and home? No problem! They helped and were so excited! Tree when the college kids come home? No problem! They are home for nearly a month and it’s sort of like old times. Tree when the grandkids come over? Sure, they light up and enjoy it so much!
But there is also a time of life when the kids aren’t young, aren’t home, are done with college and on their own, maybe living cities or states away - we are lucky to see them for a couple days over the holidays, there are no grandchildren and our parents are gone.
But we try and put on a smile and put the damn tree up because it’s what we’ve always done and somehow…if we don’t… we feel like we are letting someone down.
I’ve been so over Christmas for years, been calling all the decor “Christmas crap” forever, but it goes up anyway because DH is a big kid about the holiday. If our son can’t be with us (hasn’t since 2019), there is no holiday, and I’d just as soon skip the whole thing. My rule is that DH does the tree by himself (if he wants it, he puts it up/takes it down). We’re down to minimal beyond that, just throw up some wreaths, fake poinsettias in the courtyard, and some decor on the long buffet. Done. All the indoor decor is confined to one room, and then I secretly count the days until the “clutter” can disappear back up to the attic.
I say ditch the tree, ditch it all! Humbug!
(My faith is separate from this very commercial atrocity.)
I would love to ditch the tree, but we’ll keep doing it for the grandkids (who might be around for a total of about 5 days this season).Years ago, we tried a pitiful artificial tree for a Christmas or two. We went back to real trees for a long time. About 7 years ago, I was in a Grinch mood and bought a table top tree. Tried that for a Christmas or two. We’ve been back to a real tree since then. Here’s the problem…H likes to get the tree, put it up, and decorate it. However, he’s ADD and can’t manage this project without a lot of nagging from me. One year he didn’t get the tree up until 12/23. At that point, I was about to say “why bother?” I’ve been perusing the Balsam Hill website. Anyone have one? Is it worth the price? Oh…and I’m sick and tired of all my ornaments. Bah humbug!
7-8 years ago (after years of thinking I would never do a fake tree—what about the tradition of picking out the best one!) I bought a very nice, ultra realistic and pre-lit one in January as they were 60% off after the holidays. I just couldn’t deal with the mess and the constant low level allergies anymore, and I never wanted to deal with strands of lights again! I loved it - it looked great, and it was so well lit and well made you wouldn’t know it wasn’t a real tree unless you actually touched it. Hooray!
When my son was younger, we used to really love decorating the tree together, but in 2020 I had to really force myself to get the Christmas things out; if it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have done Christmas that year. Into January, I was dealing with much inertia and dreaded spending an afternoon taking off all the handmade wooden ornaments and gently packing them away. I kept putting it off.
And then…I just didn’t. Instead, I took a clean top sheet and very gently draped it over the completely decorated tree and carried the whole thing down to the basement. And that was that.
Now I just bring the tree up, carefully remove the sheet and voila: it’s Christmas.
Then I just have to bring out 40 years of Nutcrackers
For many years we went to a tree farm to choose our live tree. When watering it and cleaning up fallen needles eventually became too much (I was the one who usually did these jobs), we got a nice full-size fake one instead.
Then one year DH and DD decided they wanted a treadmill in the living room, so the only tree we could put up was a little fake one-- and the only place it fit was on the treadmill! I gave up on any decorating and left that to DD and DH.
Eventually we all got fed up with it and chucked it!
I then bought a potted rosemary plant to put near our LR window. It looked Christmasy. I didn’t repeat that the following year. Rosemary sheds “needles” too.
Now we just hang a stretchy fabric “Merry Christmas” banner over our LR window valance, put out a small balsa wood crèche and hang large quilted stockings (which I sewed the year DD was born) on our front door, inside and out. A few jingle bells here and there in the living room. That’s about it.
We went through all our old Christmas tree ornaments this fall. DD took the ones she wanted, we kept a very few for ourselves (no idea if we’ll ever hang them again) and the rest went into the trash.
I don’t miss any of it! I love having a less fussy holiday.
I live in a small place and buy a live table top tree (Maybe 3 feet high). I put lights and the most sentimental ornaments on, and some small balls.
This year I might not even do that.
Tree downsizing is a good transitional step.
As a side note: trees are for sale everywhere here, a week before Thanksgiving. The tabletops go fast. I refuse to be pressured into buying in November!
Tree tip: When the kids were little we did a tabletop tree, but we bought a regular-sized tree (like 5-7 feet) and had them lop off the bottom scraggly part so that the remaining tree was so full and beautiful.
Seriously! Mine comes apart into 3 sections. The top part is small, but the bottom two are ginormous. I squish it up best I can, and I still can’t get my very long arms on a 5’-10" body around it. I’m pretty strong for a woman, but it takes all the effort I can muster to wrestle it up two flights of stairs to the attic. It’s stored in 2 giant body bags. OK, technically not a body bag, but I can easily fit inside it. And I have to stuff the pieces inside and squish it together to zip it.
I would love to put it in the den closet, but I’d have to move everything in there out to make it fit.
We’ve been getting our trees from the same tree farm for 20 years - we always go with my parents the day after Thanksgiving. I hope to keep this tradition going until my parents are no longer able. In elementary school my youngest wrote a poem about it - we tend to really argue ( in a fun way) about what tree to pick. We will all be very sad when it comes to an end, so we embrace it.
This will be our first year not doing a Christmas tree at all. I don’t think we are really planning any decorating except perhaps the creche we put out every year. It is a very freeing sensation, we’re loving it.
We actually downsized the tree/decor and many ornaments last year after Christmas (down to 4 boxes total of holiday decor/ornaments in the basement). It was the last year we knew all the kids would be home for the holidays and they helped clean out the extra, unwanted stuff.
Getting a tree this year was an open question. Not all the kids are coming home and so we talked to the ones who were about what they wanted. We all decided no new tree this year - we would do experiences instead. The kids are here for a relatively short amount of time; none of us wanted to spend it setting up/cleaning up decor.
