Well, I may be an outlier, but my 4 front windows look nice.
When I was in Fort Worth, I went to the museum of cowgirls, and I loved seeng the display of Jewish cowgirls. A big donor to that museum was a Jewish family, and their daughter was a classmate is son’s g/f. She was first Jewish person the g/f knew. The g/f and my son are like bookends, sharing the good and bad qualities, that I hope religion isn’t the divider.
Growing up in NYC, I used to love seeing the menorahs in windows as much as Christmas lights. Certain areas of the city would have more menorahs than Christmas lights and visa versa.
I now live in a very small city. Hard to imagine it is even called a city. We do have a synagogue, but I rarely see menorahs in windows. I see some in dorm windows at the college where I work. But I miss seeing them.
abasket-there’s tinsel in all the stores here! I never knew it wasn’t found everywhere.
My neighborhood has Christmas lights, menorahs and some Diwali lights (still up). It is all very festive.
I takes me nearly an hour to hang the lights. It would take me less time if someone would help me-- hint…hint… I drape the ribbon around the tree, and it always ends up short.
We’ve picked up some funny, whimsical ornaments over the years. When I take them out of their wrappings each year, it’s like seeing old friends.
Very true!
A friend died of breast cancer last month…early 50s. She and her family weighed heavily on my mind as I decorated…especially the Disney tree, as she loved Donald Duck.
I need to make it a point to go there.
I have a Dutch tree, and, as I don’t have a whole lot of the fake-Delft ornaments, Hanukkah decorations have really helped fill out the blue and white color scheme.
How long? Assuming I already have the tree, let’s see -
So, in total, about a full day. I’m glad everyone here can do it quicker.
OMG you have captured my experience exactly! Thank you for that!
The lights only take 20 min, but the entire tree saga lasts three days.
Day 1: Bring the tree in, put it up. Let the cats climb all over it to release their inner bobcat/cougar, etc. spirits until the cats lose their interest in it.
Day 2: Vacuum up the dead needles that fell of the tree and the dead insects that crawled out of it and were batted around to death by my furry babies. Put up the lights and let the cats have more fun. Watch power cords carefully! (We had one cat who was very interested in chewing on Christmas lights. Mr. taught her a good lesson by letting her chew on the lights plugged into a variable transformer and cranking it up just until she felt the sting - she hissed, jumped a couple of feet up in the air, and has never touched tree lights since then).
Day 3: put the ornaments on the tree. Make sure the plastic ones are on the lower branches. Watch the cats go batty.
Needless to say, as much as I like tinsel, there is no tinsel on my tree. 
Lol, their “inner bobcat.” 
My cat doesn’t climb the tree or mess with the ornaments, but she likes to chew on the artificial greenery and faux tree branches. It’s worrisome, plus she vomits saliva with little green needles in it. It’s probably in other body eliminations, but I don’t make it a point to check that out.
After Missy’s 22 trees, I don’t feel bad admitting to 3 main trees. My $5 garage sale tree has the individual metal arms that you lock into the trunk. It takes ten minutes to put in the 60 arms. I do the lights on that tree in ten minutes. No use wrapping the branches since it all comes apart.
The family room tree is 28 years old and the umbrella type. I wind the lights on the branches and leave them for several years at a time until a strand quits working.
The hall tree is the tallest and is prelit and goes together in five minutes. The ornaments take a long time.
The hall tree has the glass ornaments I collected once the kids were old. The family room has all of their homemade and school made ornaments- my favorites! The third tree has Christmas card photos of family and friends. I mounted them on card stock and attached ribbons to hang them. I love looking at the photos and noticing how much we’ve all changed through the years. I think I made those 10 years ago.
I have two trees up so far and have the village, bookshelves and railings left.
I love the idea of the photo tree!
It would be a much shorter time, if the strings wouldn’t die after being put up. Or half the string, aargh!
Grew up in H.S. school with an aluminum tree–but the “needles” were white on the outside and silver on the back side and in a ribbon fashion. Fusia glass balls and a rotating color wheel cast on it.
It was unique and I thought cool.
I also had a seamstress made silver shiny cocktail dress for the Holiday dance that year–1968! :))
Always a real noble fir about 6.5 feet with colored lights (about 20-30 minute) and “horizontal” ribbon. No tinsel. The ornaments take a long time but I love that part.
Thankfully the noble fir is a core value that DH and I share. Even in the early lean years we would save up for it.
We leave it up through Epiphany.
Saintfan, if you have not joined Costco, you should. Just for their $40 7 ft Noble Firs!
We add to our collection of ornaments every year by either buying one at a gift shop or repurposing a piece of junk found on a beach in HI during our annual pre-Christmas HI vacation. Some of the found ones are quite unusual.
I’ve got 2/3 of our tree up and “fluffed out.” It took me a long time last night to do that. Only the top section to go, and it’s really small, just needs a tall person to plop it on top and a ladder for me to fluff out all the smashed branches.
Then I get to start decorating. When the girls were at home, we used to make a little party of decorating the tree. We’d have a fun “hors d’oeuvres” kind of dinner, yummy snacky things, play Christmas music, or have Rudolph on the tv, etc. It was a special evening, but now, it’s a solitary one. But I’ll have Charlie Brown Christmas music playing nevertheless.
@BunsenBurner, that’s an amazing price for a Noble Fir. Ours cost us several hundred dollars, IIRC. It is very “big,” though only 7 or 9 feet tall. I’ll have to take a look at those, as this tree doesn’t have a lot of years left in it, I don’t think.
I usually pay somewhere between $40 and $70 depending on the year, height and how flush I’m feeling. The Allen’s Tree Farm nobles are fabulous but more expensive.