my tree (finally) - I ADDED A PICTURE

Bah! Humbug!

My old man for several years restricted the tree to the Twelve Days. Now, that was a bit extreme, even for me. That puts the tree up on Christmas Eve. In this house, I think we are planning on putting the tree up on the 20th. It would be a week earlier, but my boys will be with their mother that weekend.

But even so... Christmas has become Franken-holiday.

I'll probably come back on this evening and either rant and rave, or share pointers that Mrs. SealPoet and I get from a class we're going to tonight: Unplugging the Christmas Machine.

I don't hate Christmas... I despise what's become of it.

i love the feeling of the season in its entirety - not just christmas. I hate the commercialism, so I don't get bogged down in the gifting, but I love the general feeling of the holiday season, and I guess Christmas just culminates everything for me. I leave it up until the end of January......

Tree isn't up yet because we're painting in there, but usually it goes up 2 or 3 weeks before Christmas.

Ah, SealPoet, I'm with you. I duck when I see Christmas coming because it's gotten all gooey and plastic. But I will post a photo of my "technocat" -- well, actually, the photo is titled "Technoslob's shelfcat."

Is it just me or is it still November ?

I'm planning to steal Gus's tree in the middle of the night tonight. Shhhhh!!!! Mums the word ;-)

SealPoet, never having met your father, I already like him immensly. 12 days of Christmas is tradition; putting up frou-fra before the feast of St. Andrew (Nov. 30), let alone before Thanksgiving, is just commercial overkill.

Skol, all! <Toasts with glass of eggnog>

I love Christmas. Love, love, love it!

We usually decorate during the three days after Thanksgiving. We have to. We're off work & school is out, so it's the only chance we get. We're going out of state to relatives for T'giving this week instead of staying home as usual. So that's limiting our time for decorating this year. We had a big cold front come through last night. Fortunately, we got our outdoor decorations up yesterday while it was still warm. Much nicer doing that in 70 degree weather (yesterday) than 38 degrees (today). A few neighbors laughed at us, yelled, "Hey, it's not even Thanksgiving yet!" "Wanna come do ours when you're finished? Ha ha!" Etc. That's okay, our turn to laugh is coming...when we watch them freeze their asses off decorating in a week or two!

We'll try to get the tree & inside stuff done next weekend after we return, but I imagine we will be up late a few nights trying to squeeze it all in.

We're so busy with parties, church activities, gift buying, visiting friends we don't see except during the holidays, etc. during December that we wouldn't have time to put up a tree if we waited until the last couple of weeks before Christmas. Now is the time to do that, so we can enjoy all the festivities during the next few weeks.

Getting all the boxes out and sorting through the decorations always puts me in the mood for eggnog, MA. Pass some over here!!!

In case anyone is looking for some, I've been putting the lyrics to a wide variety of holiday songs into the portal. Just click on Portal at the top of this page, then click on Music and Lyrics.

You can browse alphabetically by artist name or use the search feature to look for specific names, song titles or lyrics. There are also links to online shopping where the music can be purchased if you have the desire to do so.

Tartarin, I am overcome with recognition, your picture shows my computer table except of course for the cat. Is that your table?

My computer room, the only one I have sort of finished painting in the house, is Vintage Rose (a fairly dark greyed sort of purpley rose color, with white trim and white ceilings, white curtains...white painted door over white shelves... The featured animal is, as you know, a golden corgi, and there are smatterings of corgi hair all about to add texture.

Onyxelle, I am a chistmas tree regressed person, having been raised in the thick of (for a short time, but it "took") an irish catholic neighborhood where the Hennessy's had a floor to ceiling tree in the bay window and I got to go with them to pick it out on Howard Street at the north end of Chicago.
My parents and I on the other hand had a small tree that sat on the bay window ledge and went ping through the night.
Christmastime was a great childhood time for me, ice skating at - 7 degrees (before they ever mentioned windchill factor) and cocoa and cookies when we got back, and much fine feeling.

That was long ago and I am no longer religious and no longer into gearing up with house decor, except for my Greater Wreath. Details to follow.

On my way to my spare holiday decoration of today, I spent a bunch of years in my southern california bungalow dragging our Opuntia Ficus Indica cactus indoors and putting red chili pepper lights all about it. It took my hub and I together to get it indoors as one tilt in the wrong direction could hurt a lot.

Last year's greater wreath was made with drying dark purple and blue hydrangeas and lots of gold ornaments and some of that wired four inch wide gold ribbon, set on my porch mid picture window. Unfortunately, my outdoor waterproof plug shorted out a few years ago when a helper put (I think) a wet cord end into it and I am financially avoiding getting it fixed, so I can't light the wreath yet. At work though, we have our two windows filled with bigger wreathes, in this case about 4 foot circles, each wrapped with about 300 twinkle lights and lots of cedar boughs etc, hung from galvanized steel cross bars that we then wrap with great ribbon furls.

This is non denominational, festive, and makes the front room smell great.

My business partner and her husband, who are also not religious in practice, DO have a lovely tree in their house.
Plus, of course, no corgi hair.

Hmmmmm, the tradition of Christmas trees is that they shouldn't be seen until Christmas Eve. I used to like it a bit earlier than that, maybe the 20th, maybe. Now, as I find the commercialization more and more offensive, I decorate less and less, and later and later, and take the decorations down sooner. I'm not a church-going Christian, maybe not a Christian by some definitions, but I believe that Christmas should be simply about thinking about the good things that Jesus represents. Some candles, simple songs reflecting on the meaning of the season - that's all we really need.

The meaning for me, for many years, was that Christmas Eve was the one day a year I could be sure to see my uncle. Our very small North American family would be together, eat good food, laugh a lot, read good books in good company. I don't need a lot of decorations to bring that memory to me. Candles and clementines do it.

Congratulations on your tree -- it's a little early for me, but I understand your sentiments. I was born the week before Christmas and I dearly love the season.

Candles and citrus fruit are especially nice, aren't they? I think it is the fragrance that is so important for me. I love Christmas, not for the Christian aspects -- it's not that I mind them, I may even go to mass (well, probably not) and I adore the carols, but for me it is the beginning of the sun's returning. More daylight -- yes! I love the symbolism of twinkly lights, candles & yule logs. I love the camaraderie and parties, the gift-giving & festivities.

We will probably order our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving but won't put it up until the 13th and 14th of December. It's a two-day event around here with lots of home-grown traditions.

When I was a child Christmas did build up, right after thanksgiving, and did ratchet up with advent. People did get trees earlier than christmas eve, depending.

I do love trees, in all their variety and form, and know many if not most christmas trees are raised for the purpose. I still like the presence of them, the whole rigamarole around them, even if I don't participate myself as a single woman.

Christmas music on the other hand could make me attack elevator wiring.

I amend that. I think when people got trees fairly early was at work. When I turned sixteen I went to work after school and weekends at a Catholic hospital and the trees were up there early.. it cheered people.

The sun's returning is vital to me too, piffka and I share this enthusiasm for some of the same reasons and some different. I am in a semi depressed state right around my birthday, which is Oct 30, usually coinciding with the west coast US getting suddenly an hour later. As a night blind person, my functional drive time is almost obliterated - I have to leave work early to beat the dusk, with NO errands for several months. So, I die a bit each end of october and elate much on Dec. 21 as light grows. This has been true all my life and is nothing to feel sorry for me for. In fact I probably appreciate daylight, twilight, last light, the more than many do. But in practical terms, late December lightens my heart.

Read "Skipping Christmas" by John Grisham for my book club this weekend. WAY interesting discussion.

I'm glad to hear you say that, Osso. Well, not the part about being night-blind and unable to get around, but that you can appreciate the light returning... maybe more than most, because it does impinge on you. I wish we didn't have daylight savings time. I was just going to write and say I wished you would have a tree... I think it's good to have a sacrifice and an evergreen tree works beautifully for that. You can even cut it up afterwards and use it for fuel. Our tree becomes a member of the family. We greet it, people come over to visit, we give it water, check its branches, brush its fir, celebrate with it and mourn it when it is gone.

So, to get back to the tree & decorating... some of my favorite tree decorations are small mesh ball-thingies (a little hard to explain -- imagine steel wool crossed with plastic Easter grass). They slip over the lights & create a special glow by diffusing & brightening the color. They were cheap after Christmas a few years ago & I bought all that were left. I'd buy more if I could but they're hard to find. Last year I saw bigger ones that were silver & gold, but mine are in several colors -- they're just brilliant. Does anybody else have these?

No, I haven't seen those, piffka. They sound great, though. My favorites are the old-fashioned bubble lights. We have several sets that used to belong to my husband's family. He grew up admiring them, and now our son does, too.

Perhaps the most important part of our cherished ritual of decorating the tree involves handling ornaments that belonged to departed family members. And remembering when we helped them put those same decorations on the trees of our childhoods.

I remember bubble lights well, they get hot! Most of our old decorations were badly water-damaged about twenty years ago. I have a few little Santa mugs that Mr.P's mom collected. They are very precious to us.

:wink: