<p>I know that most of you are just getting ready the American Thanksgiving, I am glad ours in Canada is in October as I don’t know how you do it. My W and I spent this weekend getting ready for Christmas. I managed to decorate the outside of our house with 3500 LED low power lights including yard ornaments. I have got sore muscles where I didn’t know I had muscles. We made 12 dozen cookies (4 types) 6 meat pies and 4 dozen Cabbage rolls. We still have some baking and cooking to do but these were the time consuming ones. In 2 weeks our tree goes up, our tree is 7 feet tall and rotates so that we can decorate all the way around it. My W is an ornament junky and we have about 250 ornaments that almost all make it onto the tree. Thankfully we are finished our shopping though so we don’t have to fight the crowds. This is one of our favorite times of the year but I think I am getting too old for this.</p>
<p>We don’t do ANYTHING to get ready for Christmas until about a week AFTER Thanksgiving…typically around December 5 or so. At that point, all we do is hang our outside wreaths and buy our poinsettias. ALL (and I mean ALL) of the “rest of the getting ready” is done the week just before the holiday. That’s when we get our tree, put up our decorations, shop for the holiday meals and play holiday tunes on the stereo.</p>
<p>We love the holiday…but we do not love having it for an extended period of time!!</p>
<p>We buy presents throughout the year when we see them.</p>
<p>Look for airline sales and book flights. We live away from family so we always travel to them during this period.</p>
<p>It varies widely every year depending on how busy I am. Some years I’m baking treats for all the neighbors, other it’s strictly for family. Some years we have lots of outside lights, some practically none. </p>
<p>I have a few traditions that I absolutely stick to: cocoa and Mexican wedding cakes while we decorate the tree; new jammies for everyone on Christmas eve; watching Elf about 8,000 times. Other than that, I keep it all very fluid and try not to take on more than I want or I end up not enjoying it and going a little bananas. </p>
<p>I wish Thanksgiving were in October, except in might interfere with Halloween, which is imo the perfect holiday. No pressure, no shopping, no angry in-laws if you skip their celebration(because of course they don’t have one), an lots of chocolate. You can decorate or skip it. You can hand out candy or keep your lights off and nobody cares. </p>
<p>But yes, Thanksgiving is kind of jammed in there and it would be an extra week of Christmas prep if I wasn’t working on that right now. I think Thanksgiving in February would be perfect. There are certainly those that would say Christmas prep starts too early here and there shouldn’t be Christmas stuff going up in the stores the day after Halloween, but I’m more realistic about how much time is required to put it all together. </p>
<p>I think maybe we should all come to your house for Christmas and then we could skip all the prep work because it sounds like you do it beautifully. :)</p>
<p>I hope you have a lovely Canadian Christmas. That reminds me of the Joni Mitchell song river, “I wish I had a river I could skate away on…”. It makes me wish I lived farther North. Even though I’m in the Midwest, our local lakes and ponds to not freeze and stay frozen so that you can count on skating on them.</p>
<p>percussiondad, I think you should write a book about how to get ready for Christmas - I’d buy it. I’m stunned by what you’ve accomplished already. I needed the last three days just to get my house ready for Thanksgiving. And I still have to do one more trip to the grocery store.</p>
<p>This year will be our first without d1 home for Christmas (<em>blinks back tears</em>). She and her bf were here last year, so it’s his family’s turn this year. No argument there, but it will be hard to get excited about the holidays. I suppose I might as well get used to it (<em>blinking harder</em>).</p>
<p>We usually put our tree up about 2 weeks before the 25th. We’re ornament collectors, too, and have more than we can fit on a reasonably-sized tree. However, this year dh and I will get the tree on Black Friday while our girls are shopping - then we’ll decorate once they get home. Each year we’ve given the girls ornaments, so d1 will be bringing some of those back home with her. Though I’ll probably ask to keep a few here for this year at least!</p>
<p>Very few hints that anyone would find useful. But my holidays have gotten much easier since the girls have started shopping for themselves on Black Friday and bringing the stuff home for me to wrap. (I’m allergic to malls.) We do a few surprises, but I like them to get things they really want, like, and can use.</p>
<p>Wow I’m so impressed by how organized and into it you are! I thought I was early. We always aim to set up the house the first Saturday in December. I know it seems early but we (at least the women in the family) find it exciting, and love how it looks. Since its the same amount of work, we might as well enjoy it as long as we can (or so our logic goes). </p>
<p>Hubby does just white lights outside and brings in the artificial tree from the garage for us. I gave up on live trees years ago- I miss the smell but not the other aspects. Our tree is about ten years old, pretty complex design, but it’s become part of the ritual to assemble it (and it looks great). </p>
<p>Decorate many aspects of the house: porch, front desk and table, fireplace base and mantle, diningroom table, family room, guest bathroom…and run lighted holly down the interior stairs railing. </p>
<p>And lots of candles. Candles get me through the short, dark days of winter.</p>
<p>We are lucky that our D and her bf live within 20 minutes of each other so we get share them. This our D’s first year away from home for the decorating part though. She is in the States and is happy to have the American Thanksgiving as well because she will come home on Tuesday and help with some of the final little things. My W is of German and Ukrainian decent and I am French Canadian so our traditions have been well instilled in us. We do not turn on our Christmas though until the 1st of December. We are actually one of the least decorated houses in our area. One of our neighbors has about 30000 lights on his house. I like the decorating part but I really like the family traditions we have carried on. We like being finished by the now so that we can take the time to enjoy the season and not get mowed over by it.
Helenback if you search the Rideau Canal in winter you will see that we have the longest skating rink in Canada (arguably the world) at 4.8 miles long. We love it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>By taking a few aspirin…</p>
<p>All kidding aside, my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, and we always host Thanksgiving dinner, so I wait until after. I am not much of a shopper and don’t believe in over-buying, but I already have my shopping list on my computer. Usually the weather is nice enough around the first of December for H & S to put the outside lights up. We live in a neighborhood which decorates a lot.</p>
<p>Inside decorating/tree, etc. get done around the second week of December or so. It’s pretty toned down. We live far from family so we tend to travel at Christmas.</p>
<p>I have an issue with any decorations - inside or out - making an appearance before Thanksgiving occurs. IT’S THANKGSGIVING! LET’S ENJOY IT!!!</p>
<p>I know some people like to take advantage of the nicer weather to put up decorations - my theory? I will just have to stand the cold to put them up - it’s part of the deal! (and for the record, it is ME who decorates inside and out - it’s not my husband’s thing at all!) If it’s too cold, or snowy or whatever, then I will just do with a little less if needed. It’s just one year, one Christmas and simplicity usually looks best anyway. Just my own personal rant. :)</p>
<p>The first thing I usually put out are the electric “candles” in our windows - we have a New England Colonial with 9 windows in front – it is our tradition to let these “burn” from after Thanksgiving until about Valentine’s Day - it’s more of a “winter” thing.</p>
<p>“Helenback if you search the Rideau Canal in winter you will see that we have the longest skating rink in Canada (arguably the world) at 4.8 miles long. We love it.”</p>
<p>This looks wondrous!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I meant to say we tend NOT to travel at Christmas. Family rarely visits,so it’s usually just us.</p>
<p>Currently everything is all about Thanksgiving. No Christmas decor, food, etc. The day after Thanksgiving it all changes…the tree goes up (fake due to allergies), Santa collection goes on the bookcase, all music is Christmas. By Saturday evening even the dishes are changed to Christmas dishes. I love it all, but it has to wait until after Thanksgiving. Baking happens in a couple of weeks, DD loves to help with that.</p>
<p>This is a good question with different answers than I would have had just a couple of years ago…this year i will focus on the fact that my two older girls have a harder time coming home for various reasons…one is transitioning into graduating and finding a job on the west coast…It has hot me that the holidays will be changing, and not in terms of how many lights we will string outside…not sure how to handle all of that</p>
<p>When my kids were little I had a job that was extraordinarily demanding for the month of December, so we have always put the tree up the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend and taken it down New Year’s Day. I have always done a fresh tree, but despise doing the lights, especially when you test every strand then after the tree is entirely done 1/2 of 1 strand in the front and center stops working. </p>
<p>We are true empty nesters this year, but with kids coming home will still do all the old traditions. We make French Onion soup for Christmas Eve and have fun appetizers. We have always done the Christmas Day meal at our home and in the old days my siblings all spent Christmas in their towns and came for New Year’s. Now every one’s kids are grown and they don’t worry about coming at holiday time so it is a lot quieter, but we are looking to evolve into some new traditions.</p>
<p>As fewer people come, though, there is less need to make all the fun foods and it diminishes the festive spirit, I suppose that will come back when the kids settle down and have their own families some day. But we will try not to put unpleasant pressure on them. We had several years of being pressured to always do all the activities at the in-laws house and none at mine or my parents, it took a few years to work that out and I want my kids never to feel the way I felt. </p>
<p>One DD has a great travel opportunity this year and we encouraged her to grab it and not come home 
It will be sad, but also exciting to think of her new adventures!</p>
<p>I’m usually still sleeping off the turkey doping on the Friday after Thanksgiving, so the Christmas decorating begins on Saturday after Turkey Day. When my kids were little I decorated the outside of our house with lights. As they grew older, I got lazier. Now, I simply decorate the front door - always with a gold bell with a long red bow attached and some greenery. Inside I take down my fall quilt (on family room wall) and put up the wreath and stockings. Unfortunately, the tree has to wait until Christmas Eve because our kitty likes to climb it. It comes down first thing in the morning the day after Christmas. I have collected ornaments since childhood and have lots of memories tied up in them. Every year I think about loved ones and friends as I unwrap the ornaments and remember who gave me this one or that one. DD and DS each have their own set of ornaments (they get a new one each year for Christmas) they will take with them when they get their own places (after college). </p>
<p>Baking usually starts about 10 days before the big day. I use a sugar cookie recipe that’s been in my family for at least 5 generations. The kids love to decorate them (that’s part of the tradition, too 
) The cookies cutters for the sugar cookies were my mom’s and grandma’s - lots of good memories. Some years I make strudel, and other years I make other family-recipe cookies. One year I made spritz cookies with an old fashioned cookies press. The kids still tease me about the Christmas buffalos I made. (Okay, they were suppose to be camels. They just came out as very fat camels.)</p>
<p>It seems like Thanksgiving reminds me that it’s time to shop for Christmas gifts. I purchase a few items throughout the year, but the bulk of the shopping is done after Thanksgiving. My kids still make a Christmas list. I use to buy lots of gifts for them when they were little, but have gone to higher quality (more expensive), thus fewer, gifts over the years. They do get an ornament (or as DD use to say “ormanint”), and I buy a new game for us to play over the holiday break. Really, my kids have most everything they need and, frankly, want by now. Mostly, we just spend the time together enjoying football, Christmas movies (The Santa Clause is my favorite), and each other.</p>
<p>One year I’d like to take the kids to an inn in Vermont, Maine, or NH for Christmas. Just think the kids would enjoy seeing snow and riding in a sleigh.</p>
<p>I forgot that Americans feel really adamant about seeing anything Christmas before Thanksgiving! We lived overseas for a long time, and there are no holiday milestones like Halloween and Thanksgiving to hold back Christmas – nobody seems to have a problem with starting Christmas festivities in October in Bavaria, for example. It’s funny, right?</p>
<p>Every year I seem to take out fewer decorations, as everyone is occupied with different things, and decorating is so time-consuming. I bought some solar light strings for outside last year (don’t bother with those, they are NOT bright) and prelit garlands to drape on the windows.</p>
<p>My mom has a friend who keeps her Christmas tree decorated and in its own closet. She pulls it out, and, done! We laughed about that for years, but ya know? I could totally do that now. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A repairman who came to fix my stovetop told me that he goes into many homes where people leave a fully decorated Christmas tree up year round and just throw a sheet over it!
I think this is hilarious.</p>
<p>I’m just looking for a closet big enough to hold such a tree. However, I cannot yet bring myself to go artificial, too addicted to the heady pine scent.</p>
<p>Also, what is the verdict on the new LED lights for the tree? Are they too harsh, is the light too whitish? How are the colored lights? It may be time to replace many strings of our old twinkles, and am wondering if LED is the way to go?</p>
<p>Our artificial tree has the built multicolored led lights and I really like them. I do not find them too harsh and it sure is a lot easier to put them up…plug it in. If one burns out the most I lose is 5 lights so it is easy to find.</p>