Anyone got their tree up yet.

[MacB]

I am feeling a little nostalgic for that now! Those three words just made me see a really vibrant front room, and the excitement I felt then. Maybe I could do it, and if the neighbours shun us, I can say it is a post-modern, ironic statement? Talking of which - remember those minimalist spayed silver sticks that some people went for a few years back? Now they are dismal!

remember, we have one silver, one gold and one green, all spangly artifical of course. Though, once they get weighed down by tinsel it's hard to tell the basic colours.

 

[Arch]

Anyone else remember when trees had real candles on the spruces that dried to tinder box

In our box of assorted decorations we have the paper lanterns my Grandma used when Mum was little, complete with holders for candles....

I think Christmas should be about family and nostalgia, hence our family decorations are pretty much all the stuff I remember from childhood - only the lights have been updated really, and Mum's bought a nice realistic plastic tree to replace the silver tinsel one we had for about 25 years. We still have an original 1960's box of lametta too, although the number of strands gathered back in each year dwindles.

 

[rich p]

Ah lamented lametta!

Bits of old cheap tinsel used to turn up in corners till June.

It has to be real tree surely!

 

[Arch]

Ah lamented lametta!

Bits of old cheap tinsel used to turn up in corners till June.

It has to be real tree surely!

I love a real tree, but I can forgive my Mum not wanting to have the fuss and hoovering, especially as we'll all descend on Christmas Eve and bugger off on Sunday...

 

[upsidedown]

We've got a silver giant monstrosity for the living room, with numerous smaller window sill sized fibre optic things.

I will barricade the loft hatch if she tries to get them down before the 13th of December.

Did i mention the inflatable santa for outside ?

 

[Corvette chic]

nothing in ours.... i am mrs bah humbug

 

[tyred]

BAH HUMBUG!

It's only ****ing November

 

[Fnaar]

When we was nippers, we had real trees for a while, then mum got fed up with needles etc, and we had the tackiest of tcky fake trees with tacky baubles, tacky this, tacky that and more tinsel than Woolies used to have in stock.
And I'm sure she used to complain about needles even with the plastic one!

Mrs F had an altogether less tacky upbringing, and so now her taste for trees has (happily) won the day. Over the years, her and the kids have made a load of crafty nicey-nicey wholesome really rather lovely decorations, which adorn our tree during the yuletide festivities. We go and get a tree form a farm about 5 or so miles away, where the fella has a great big wood that he's been cultivating for years for the Christmas market. You bring a saw and go into the wood, find a tree a cut it down your self, drag/carry it back to HQ and pay about £2 per foot. I usually get a six to eight footer (we've got very high ceilings ) The kids tell me they enjoy this process of cutting down the tree, but I suspect it's me that derives the most pleasure from it We put it up the weekend before Christmas, and it comes down on 6th Jan.

I'm not in any way religious (quite the opposite) but I love Christmas but not when it starts in blimming Sept/Oct/Nov....

 

[Speicher]

I will put the tree (small, artificial one) up about the 19th December, and again on the 21st and the 23rd and probably the 27th. Each time, I have to rearrange the decorations. Who is clever and can guess why it gets put up at least four times?

And then who is even cleverer and has a solution?

 

[Kirstie]

Lametta is great fun if you've got cats. The tree will be over in no time. In our road lots of people go for the full on lights in their front gardens etc. Because it made us look like miserable buggers, we eventually bowed to the pressure and have a hilariously overdone front and back garden at Christmas (for us). I actually really like it. The other half takes it really seriously (he's a sound/lighting engineer anyway) so they're so firmly fixed up there there's no way they're coming down!

 

[Arch]

I will put the tree (small, artificial one) up about the 19th December, and again on the 21st and the 23rd and probably the 27th. Each time, I have to rearrange the decorations. Who is clever and can guess why it gets put up at least four times?

And then who is even cleverer and has a solution?

a) cats and something big enough to want to eat a cat?

 

[Speicher]

One young cat in particular, likes to play with the decorations, and sometimes gets a bit too playful. She is a very strong and heavy cat*.



* takes after the person she owns

 

[Randochap]

I have some loverly firs in the garden. That's where they're staying.

 

[rich p]

I have an old Dawes Galaxy nailed to my front wall which sports hanging baskets of flowers during the warmer months and some dwarf conifers in the winter. Last year I wrapped lights round the wheels and the flash made it appear they were spinning. How kitsch!

 

[lady_rider]

In our box of assorted decorations we have the paper lanterns my Grandma used when Mum was little, complete with holders for candles....

I think Christmas should be about family and nostalgia, hence our family decorations are pretty much all the stuff I remember from childhood - only the lights have been updated really, and Mum's bought a nice realistic plastic tree to replace the silver tinsel one we had for about 25 years. We still have an original 1960's box of lametta too, although the number of strands gathered back in each year dwindles.

Yup... on our tree are wrapped up matchboxes we did as kids, some smoking gnomes my Dad brought back from Germany for us which used to cause huge fights as to which colour was whose, tinsel that has definitely seen better days, and a wonky, cardboard, aluminium foil-covered star. Perfect!