Holiday decorating
 

I'm taking a break from cleaning / decorating. Who has started, who is done?
What is your "theme"?

I have a love for tinsel trees (yes, i know they are tacky!) So my entry hall will have a red tinsel tree and my nutcracker collection, the living room will have a white tree with bright colored ornaments, and I haven't decided if I am going to put a third tree up in the family room yet.

Well back to cleaning, rearranging furniture, and unloading decorations.....

We have 3 themes--Mexican Christmas, Christmas candy, and Christmas balls. Right now, we're still agonizing over whether to make the move to an artificial tree. Most we've seen look so fake!

Just think, it couldn't look at fake as my white tree! :)

LOL, some of the fake trees with lights on them really look good now. Just have to put the added goodies to help "spruce" them up, no pun intended.:D

My little tree is about 18 inches tall and is in the front room window on the ledge.

It was given to me by Bookems wife Debbie as she felt I need it!:)

Just looking at it makes a small glow for the Holidays.

We use an artificial tree for our New Year Tree every year. It looks really sad and pathetic when it first comes out of the box, but after you put all the ornaments and lights on it, it looks really gorgeous. I think some places even sell a spray that you can put on your artificial tree to make it smell just like the natural ones.

We haven't had a real tree since I was almost one and found out I am allergic to Pine trees. Since then, we've also found out, that I am allergic to most coniferous trees...

We have a 7.5 fake srpuce. (Think tall and narrow tree.) I love it. We use regular size matte finished burgandy, green, and gold balls with smaller shiny and matte mixed pearl, gold, and burgandy little balls with little clear lights.

I keep things as simple as possible.

Other than that, we have stockings, a wreath, and a Christmas snow globe collection, thanks to the dear M-I-L. :rolleyes:

We haven't done a thing yet. We don't do much... an electric menorah and some electric candles in the windows, and that's about it.

LOL, Tippie! This will work until your son gets into school and starts bringing home his handmade ornaments! That's when my jeweltone-themed tree went down the toilet.

Well, we have a balcony, so I am going to string white lights around it. Since I spend most of the holiday season at my parents' house in Florida, I'm not buying a real tree. I am, however, buying a nice wreath from the Quebecois tree sellers around the corner to put on the front door.

I love tinsel trees, too! I think it's probably a rebellion from my mother, who is very traditional in her (over)decorating.

I have a few things for my dorm room, including a tiny silver tinsel tree, some silver tinsel I'm not sure where I'll put, and some of those flashing, strobing lights that give people seizures.

Maybe I'll get a theme when I get out of a dorm. Which will be never.

We haven't started yet; between school and work, neither my wife nor I have had the time. Since we own a house now, we have to figure out how to decorate the oustide as well. That should take up a weekend or two.

We usually have a real full-size tree and 2 tabletop artificial trees (approx 3-4'). The mini trees are for themes, the big one is the catchall.

No decorating this year however: we're going to the tropics over the Winter Break!

I have a bad feeling we're going to end up being the redneck family this year. My father put up the Christmas decorations outside, but he is having rotator cuff surgery next week. I have a bad feeling those decorations are going to be up until April sometime, unless the neighbor who promised to help comes through.

Haven't started the inside yet.

Hope his surgery goes well. If anything, you can use all the tinsel from the gift bag for your tree.

TC, you were almost a tree? Now that's traumatic!

ps. out of context quotes rule!

Heh, heh. I think I would have been a magnolia.

Well, it didn't help that I had been drinking Margaritas and some peach wine when I wrote it. I should have obviously added ...years-old.

I got all the music boxes, Nativity scenes and other decorations out. I fluffed and assembled the tree, but we didn't decorate it yet. My aunt gave me her whole Christmas village so I had to move things around and make a new "plan" for everything to accomodate the village. My daughter and I had a good time putting the new village up. However, I thought they would 'daisy chain' with the plugs and they don't, so I have to buy some long surge protectors to plug in all the little shops, etc.

I put lights on the shrubs today (since it was in the 60's, I figured it was now or never), but I decided not to do the lights on the gutters this year. Next weekend, I'm going to pick up a couple lighted display things to put on the lawn. Michael's has some good deals and, of course, their 40% off coupon, so I think I can get what I want. No gutter lights this year, nope. The bottom line is, the shrubs are getting too large to be able to get my ladder in between them safely, on stable ground.

I think that I don't need to be getting up on ladders anymore anyway. I'm so wiped out tired from hauling boxes up the stairs. It's been a very tiring weekend.

Mine is the same, only with pink instead of burgandy. I also tuck silk magnolias & roses in between the branches, then scatter just a little artificial snow from the top.

I have two archways in my living room, with magnolias, and the same pink ribbon from the tree at the top of each. The same bows are on my mailbox, wreath, and lamp posts. The only lights I put up (clear, of course) outside are on a burberry bush (which glows pink) and the huge Mountain Laurel I have on the side of the house.

Today was clearing up for the decorations day; next weekend, I hope to put them up.

Since i already was in the christmas tree thread we have already put up the tree and decorations this past week. Besides my obession with the perfect full and tall tree i have decked out the house and it has all come together quite well. My decorations are pretty much in the burgandy, hunter green and gold color scheme. I have my grandfathers old train set under the tree as well as a beautiful navitiy set in the entry way table. Along with all the red, green and white cutsey old fashion decorations i cant ever get rid of.

I hang tear drop decorated weaths and lighted mantle swags over the mantle and door ways. I bought last yr at the after-christmas sale at wal mart this HUGE outdoor weath that is pre strung and put it up above the garage door along with the dangling white lites and mix it with traditional colored strands outside.

We really deck the halls every yr around here. My brothers and i can see who can outdo the other each yr :) I am now on the search for the old fashion tree lights that are now walk way path light stakes. We also put out the yard display items.

The housing development i live in , i think we secertly try to out do one another every yr , like my brothers and myself. :)

this is the first christmas that my bf and i have lived together - my first away from home...

so while my bf swears he has a big box of decorations somewhere, i think i'm going to have to raid my mom's garage, to see what we need :D

hopefully we'll find that box tonight! :p

This is my first christmas living with my boyfriend also...since our house is decorated in lots of earthy colors, green walls and beige couches, we went for a similar style in christmas decorating...pinecone garlands on the mantle, fake holly berries and nuts in a centerpiece, etc. The only mismatch is our tree, because I have soo many of the bright colorful balls and painted popsicle stick ornaments from my siblings that the tree looks super out of place :p I love christmas decorating though, we did it Black Friday!

It's so exciting to read about everyone getting their holiday decorations up, everything sounds so pretty...I'm actually kind of looking forward to the day when I have my own place to really decorate...

I'm starting to get a better idea of what the whole actually living on my own thing is going to be like since this year I'm living in a suite with five other girls that I know from last year and we've made our common room into more of a living room and less of a typical dorm common room, it's very home feeling all the time, but the best is how it's being decorated for the season. We live on the 11th floor of our building (the top floor, of the tallest building on campus) and we have multi-colored lights hanging in the windows, a real, alive christmas tree (which is amazing to me because at home we have a fake tree, and because, there's an alive christmas tree on the 11th floor of a dorm, in cleveland and that just seems like a very unlikely place to find a christmas tree) that has white lights and random orniments that we've made or brought from home. There are 6 little stockings on the wall and each one has one of our names on it in our favorite color, and the door is wrapped in wrapping paper and has a wreath on it (basically, one of my suitemates realllllly loves hoildays...)

It's also cute that at my sorority house we have snowflakes that the VP of Membership Development made hanging on the wall, and they each have a sister's name written on it.

My mom has annouced the theme this year will be "retro." She is putting up all her ornaments she has collected over the years, which probably means putting up the ones we made as kids too.

What I really think her theme is "I'm going to do my damnest to guilt trip my daughter to prevent her from moving 5,000 miles away."

I think she is going to put up the ones we made as kids, too. She even mentioned popcorn gurland. I'm frieghtened.

Since I spend the week betwn Christmas & New Year's at my parents, I don't do much here in NYC. Maybe some holiday scented candles.

Every year we use the same family tree with a bunch of old ornamets. Teacher ornaments from when my mom was first teaching, the ones we made in pre-school, etc etc. While I know it's the same tree year after year, it always looks a little shorter! Must be something that happens as I get older...

SigmaPsi Star.. You reminded me of one of my favorite college memories...
I was living with my sister-daughter and one of my pledge sisters in an apartment and it was finals week. We'd all been studying like crazy and it was around midnight and we were getting stir crazy. We decided we needed a break to get our Christmas spirit going so we headed to Meijer and picked up green garland and lights. We taped the garland to the wall of our living room in the shape of a tree, taped the lights on it and made ornaments out of construction paper. We had a blast and our "tree" looked great! Ahhh, those were good times.. wish I could go back!

I haven't even thought about decorating yet. I usually don't decorate until a week before Christmas.

I walked passed a Christmas tree vendor earlier and was overwhelmed by the smell of pine trees. It was 60-something degrees today so it seemed a little weird like Christmas in Springtime.

I'm being a Grinch this year. Normally, I decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving. We go get a 8-9' real tree for the LR and a wreath for outside. I have a large collection of Santas that get set in our piano, mantel, windowseat -- basically anywhere I can put them -- and two small trees that get the Santa ornaments.

This year, however, our house is in a state of semi-construction and I am not feeling the holiday spirit. I put up my Willow Tree Nativity scene, one Santa and some lighted garland outside. Good enough.

My Little Tree is in the window and still looking for the simulated stained glass winter scene. It has to be in the junk room.:confused:

My mother-in-law gave me a beautiful nativity set that belonged to her mother. It's off-white porcelain and absolutely gorgeous. I start putting the pieces out today only to find that Mary and 2 of the wise men are missing.
Damn. All I can think is where on earth are they but my hubby is laughing saying that she ran off with them & abandoned baby Jesus with Joseph. I could have strangled him. :rolleyes:

I think your husband's going to hell for that.

I started pulling stuff out today. I found out that our tree fits well in the corner next to our fireplace. It's pre-lit, and since it's in the corner, I only have to worry about decorating one side - which between two-year-old and new baby is about all I'm going to have time for.

Are we talking about our homes, or our sorority / fraternity houses?

At home - My step mom has some weird obsession with over decorating for Christmas. She gets some day workers to put up a ton of lights and make stupid life size Christmas cut outs, which high school kids love to target (usually with potatoes). I wish she did the same for Halloween so I could scare the hell outta some little guys.

In front of our house we have this huge tree, I'm not sure what kind of tree it is, but I want to get every inch of it covered in lights. Good thing we have "student workers"


I always thought these were cool, but how much time do people have on their hands! http://www.collegehumor.com/video:16...arch:christmas

This will be my first Christmas in Savannah and without snow!!! I had a chance to come off the road for a week and spent it at home with the boyfriend. My boyfriend insisted on a real tree, so we bought one and decorated it in silver and blue ornaments.

To make up for the lack of snow I borrowed a tip from the Martha Stewart website and ironed on fabric homemade snowflakes onto a see-through curtain that covers our deck door and one in the bedroom window. :)

I also bought some cute silver Holiday decorations from Pier1 and put them all over the house. We also bought a blue and silver ball wreath for our door. I got a little crafty and bought various sized boxes and wrapped them up as gifts and placed them as decorations through-out the apartment. The wrapping papers were different shades of blue and silver.

Christmas and Halloween are my favorite holidays and I usually go a little overboard...my birthday is also on Christmas, I think that's why I love it so much. :)

This is my first year with a tree by myself - last year I was in the process of moving over Christmas, so there was no point.
I decorated the tree in silver, teal and blue balls, with blue and silver ribbon and white lights. The silver star on top is almost too big for the room, or I guess I should say that my tree is too tall - it's 7 and 1/2 feet tall.
The wreath is decorated with silver stuff. And then my centerpiece on my table is also filled with ball ornaments.

Nieng17, if you want some snow, I can send you some!

It'll be Mr. Pi Phi and I's first Christmas in our new apartment (we just moved in together in Seotember).

I love Christmas, he's not really a fan, so I will be doing all the decorating. We have a 6' tree for our little apartment (it's fake...I've only ever had a real tree twice in my life, and Mr. Pi Phi hates the pine smell). I'm doing a silver and blue theme on my tree this year. I have all my decorations for the tree, but I won't be putting it up till the 11th or 12th of December.

The lights for the balcony went up last week, but thet went on yesterday. I can't stand it when Christmas decorations go up too early. I probably get that from my English mother, where the tradition over there was to put the tree up on Christmas Eve and it would stay up for the 12 days of Christmas.

this will be my first christmas out on my own so i went and bought a stunning white christmas tree and wrapped it with blue lights. i then added a few strategically placed silver/opalescent bulbs to the tree and finished it off with blue garland.

i'm very pleased with the way it turned out.