BS: decorating the Christmas tree

Subject: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:51 PM

Its the most prolific endeavor of conceptual art I know of.

I went with several types of blue LED light strings in various shapes: globe, taper, convex lens and concave. Along with a few white and even fewer green lights, the overall intensity of the blue light is overwhelming. Even better they are only 4 watts per string.

Atop a cabinate I placed a laser projector of thousands of green stars is highlighted with a transmogrifying blue nebula laser. They are all in motion and perfectly revolve above the tree on the ceiling. I got it from Cool Stuff .com and is brighter than I expected.

All the ornaments of days gone by were placed with care by the family.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:55 PM

btw the tree is fake and 10 years old.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:56 PM

Donuel. Where from? Give us a URL! There are hundred of gadget freaks out here dying to know!

:D

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 02:03 PM

What the fock do you smoke Donnie? I mean like I've wondered for a long time.........Sometimes it seems as if you're pretty close to being null and void. Others you just seem moderately whacked. Lemmeee know 'cause I might want to try the shit or avoid it altogether......

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 02:25 PM

http://www.coolstuffexpress.com/store/p/57-Green-Laser-Stars-LaserStars-Holographic-Projector.html



Don't smoke no more when I did 11 years ago I liked the stuff that smell like a cross between old t shirt laundry, evergreen forests and French madame underarms.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 02:32 PM

Oh yeah......that stuff was great and it has one helluva' half life...........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 03:58 PM

The lights referenced in the link cost $149!! None for me, thanks.

The missus is asking if energy-efficient Christmas-tree lights are available this year (that is, something comparable to the compact fluorescents we've used to replace all our regular light bulbs). We would certainly be interested, but the price would have to be reasonable, of course.

So, Donuel, what did you used to smoke? Galoises? Or skunkweed pot? (Either would fit your description.)

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Cats
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:39 PM

I decorate my tree with christmas hangers that people have brought back from all over the world. At Christmas when I unwrap them its like bringing friends back into the house. It is always a real tree and I decorate the house with fresh cut greenery from the garden. The inglenook foreplace in the dining room gets decorated with candles and bay leaves, cinnamon sticks etc. The star on the top of my tree was made from wood shavings from trees cut down at Nuremburg. It's going to be on the TV this year as, for some reason, the tele people think it's an unusaul but interesting way of decorating a tree. What's so strange about having friends to stay over the midwinter festivals?

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 05:37 PM

The spectre of Nuremburg trees full of "nutrients" is daunting if not macabre. Nothing says lovin from the oven or peace on earth like Xmas trees from Nuremburg.

please forgive this post, it musta been that 1984 skunkweed

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 09:17 PM

We're thinking of decorating our tree with chopped liver this year, organic of course. When we can't stand the smell it will be time to take it down,
unless we're too busy.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 12:04 AM

We used to take it down for the super bowl but the game seems to get closer to Valentines day every year.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 03:24 AM

There's a certain Mudcatter who, at a very young age, decorated their tree with sprouts.

Limpit is great at undecorating trees - especially if hung with chocolate. The year she was 3, she refused to eat all her Christmas lunch and wandered off into the sitting room - to watch TV we thought. We staggered up from our lunch an hour later and looked in to find she'd stripped the tree of all but one chocolate decoration and was fast asleep in a pile of foil wrappers.

We tend not to use lights on our tree, which is always a real, hopefully pot grown one. I always try to buy a tree that is still a living plant and can go out into the garden. Our longest survivor started life at my mothers' house as one of those miniature 12" table top decorations. It's now 3ft high and at least 10 years old. Regrettably, the drought a few years ago took out our other survivor -4ft tree at 3 years and counting it was.

We use old baubles, I have an extensive collection, all bought in the last 17 years, except for two, which were possibly given to my parents for their first Christmas as a married couple, in 1952. They are pearly white with a sage green band around them, and one has the 'dimple', banded in silver, orange and purple. I say 'possibly', because I remember them on a tree in my grandparents house, so they may have been theirs and my mother acquired them when her mother died. Or they might have been a duplicate set... anyway, they're the last surviving relics of a bygone age, before tree lights were common and baubles bounced.

Of course, I still manage to buy a few new baubles every year... this year they're those long pointed lozenge shapes in green and purple.

Do you have any strange traditions when putting your tree out?

I can't remember when it started, but we have always left one chocolate decoration on the tree when putting it out for the refuse/recycling collection. I can remember my granfer telling me to leave something on it to say thank you to the tree, and when he put his tree out, there was always a little something on it. It might have been the last chocolate, or some popcorn, or apple quarters, but there was always something.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Morticia
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 07:13 AM

The mudcatter Liz is referring to is Pixie. The year in question she was three, I think and had been helping decorate the tree with some little net bags of chocolate money.

The phone rang and I got caught up in a conversation, meanwhile the little net bags of coins had all gone on to the tree. Pixie wandered out to the kitchen and found that brussel spouts were also in a net bag and, ergo, must be destined for the tree, yes? Perfectly logical if you think about it.

And yes, we left them there all Christmas, what else could you do?

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Becca72
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 07:42 AM

The only christmas tradition I remember having as a kid was being called down to the living room to pull tinsel out of the cat's ass after she'd eaten it off the tree. Bleck.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: artbrooks
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 08:34 AM

Decorate for Christmas? A few weeks early yet. Our tree will go up 12/21 and come down 12/28. Have to get past Hanuka first.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Rumncoke
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 09:18 AM

Ours goes up on the eve of the first day of Christmas and is taken down on the morning after twelfth night. That is 24/12 to 6/1 in English.

I have to clear a space for it yet - good thing it is still three weeks to go.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: jacqui.c
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 09:29 AM

When I did Christmas decorations it was always 24.12 - 6.1. That way they were fresh for the day.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 03:22 AM

Morty - I was trying to be diplomatic and not reveal the person concerned (and not least for fear of retribution), on your head be it!!

The baby books all rant on about the 'Terrible Twos' but maybe it's the more imaginative and creative Threes we should be concerned about?

We put our decorations up around the 19th/20th, so that there is something for the solstice as well as Christmas. Except for the dining room (where it's ALWAYS Christmas), they come down by Twelfth Night. If something gets left behind, it stays there until the following Christmas.

In the road behind mine, there is a house that has had full tree and lights in the window since Hallowe'en, the house opposite put its tree up last weekend and two of the worst perpetrators of 'Christmas lights gone crazy' (or CLGC) started to put their displays up last Saturday. I daresay they'll increase as the weekends come. So far the worst CLGC offender has yet to put a single santa out (there were 9 last year, crawling over the front of the house like some strange plague of red and white cockroaches) but I daresay yesterdays' fine weather will have brought out a few. I'm off shopping later, so I'll drive down that way and look. It's not safe to do so after dark.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 08:31 AM

Tree? Why?

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 09:48 AM

(to be said in a 'Topol' voice)...

TRADITION!!!!


LTS

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: mack/misophist
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 10:36 AM

Don't do xmas myself but years ago a Jewish friend used to put up a Channukah bush every year. It was basicly a small, leafless bush decorated with gold painted ham hocks and stars of David cut from red and green cardboard. The door got a Noh mask (the Princess) in a evergreen wreath. It looked pretty good.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Bee
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 12:04 PM

PoppaGator, LED Christmas tree and outdoor lights are cheap as dirt and twice as common here, use very little energy and are cooler than trad lights. I don't think anything else is available here anymore. I've used LED strings for about four years.

Our tree goes up around the 20th, comes down New Year's Day or the day after. I have old glass ornaments from Husband's family and my family, plus old decorations picked up at flea markets, plus crafted items and odd ones I've bought. I like bead garlands, and use a lot of them. None of those thick furry tinsel ropes - they obscure the other decorations too much. I made my own angel. Her face is a touch crude lookin', but she has a great dress, real feather wings, and her blond hair is fashioned from yarn spun from our dearly departed dawg's fur years and years ago.

I'm a fan of natural decorations as well. I've made ornaments of sand dollars, urchin shells, scallop shells, and some Horseshoe crab tail shells a friend brought home for me.

We use a real tree, to support the local tree farmers, who don't use pesticides or fertilizers - they figure the local environment grows trees just fine, why mess with it? It goes on one of the gardens for winter protection and I throw bird seed over it now and then.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: paula t
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 05:28 PM

We buy a tree from the local farm. The girls decorate it with decorations of all shapes and colours, collected over the years(including Kathryn's toilet roll angel and Sarah's pasta star - made by each when they were in playgroup!).
I don't think I could ever feel the same about a colour co-ordinated tree!

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: coldjam
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 05:45 PM

In Northern Michigan we always got a local tree early in Dec. (They have farms up there and the trees are always replaced. Usually cost about $10-$15 for a 5 to 7 footer. And ours was recycled in the wood furnace or bon fire.

First you get out the egg nog and something extra to nog it up with (VERY important)...sprinkle with nutmeg...put out a big platter of goodies, and some appropriate music, then drag all the decorations up from the basement. If the kids are grown you have a nice quiet decorating party. If not, you pray nothing gets broken as they lunge for their favorites to hang. 'bout the time you're finished and your blood sugar has plumeted, on comes the Christmas movie favorite and dinner of some kind.

This year we'll stick a small, 5 or 10 inch (artificial)craft-size tree on the dashboard, and sing our own Christmas carols as we go dashing through the south! Maybe we'll carol at stop lights!

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 03:24 AM

What is this American fascination with eggnog? It's sickly, disgusting and puke-making! (well I think so...)

In the UK, the free paper 'Metro' (available in London, Birmingham, Manchester and other large cities) has a feature today on Eco-friendly lights and decorations. There's a few handy tips on avoiding the sweatshop products and making your own.

It also (if I remember rightly) has a link to a website that shows pictures of some of the worst offenders when it comes to lighting houses. Trouble is, I left my copy on the train and it's too early for everyone else to be in yet.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Little Robyn
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 03:42 AM

We've just made our chrissie tree decorations with my oldies at work, using salt ceramic. It makes a lovely white stuff like play dough that you roll flat and cut into appropriate shapes with biscuit cutters. The recipe is really easy and your kids can decorate them with food colouring or paint and glitter, or just leave them white and sparkly.

Salt Ceramic recipe:
1 cup salt
1/2 cup cornflour
3/4 cup water
Cook over a low heat, stirring constantly until it forms a ball.
Knead it (when it has cooled a little) and roll flat.
Cut into shapes - stars, flowers, diamonds etc.
Make a small hole at the top with a knitting needle or skewer, to thread string through for hanging.
Just leave on a flat surface to dry for 24-48 hours.
We did the painting and decorating while they were still soft but you can glue glitter on later if you prefer.
Robyn

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work ...
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 05:42 AM

and wishing she was at home because that looks like fun. A lot better than the salt dough you have to bake in the oven. I may be trying that tonight when it gets too dark to do my cards.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: coldjam
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 01:49 PM

There are definitely some gacky egg nogs out there; you have to find the right one.Maybe that's what the brandy is for, to dull the pain until you find the one that isn't disgusting! By then you probably won't care anyway! I keep wanting to mull some wine-even have a special spice blend a friend gave me...it just seems, well, WRONG somehow to do that to perfectly good wine!

We did dough ornaments when the kiddie were young...some have survived...some turned greenish brown and were reluctantly thrown out. We also made some "trees" with a salt dough recipe. Good times!

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Bee
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 02:41 PM

Coldjam, the trick is not to use good wine - any old red acidic wine will do, since you're going to spice it mightily and steam off half the alcohol.

And, curse you, Little Robyn! Now I want to make salt dough and I haven't a bit of cornstarch in the house!

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: ranger1
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 02:51 PM

paula t, the treetopper on the tree at Grandma's is a toilet roll angel that my uncle and I made together when I was five, 33 years ago. She has reigned over the tree every Christmas since her creation.

As for the rest of my ornaments, we use a very few glass balls that we bought from a store, but everything else was either hand-made or or given by someone special to us. And no tinsel, the cat eats enough odd things as it is!

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: GUEST,Essex Girl
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 08:36 AM

My daughter, grandchildren and myself will be going to the woods to collect greenery for our houses next weekend, just like I did with my parents. Then we add the ivy that proliferates in my garden and "deck the halls" I will also make a holly and ivy wreath for the front door.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 09:15 AM

One year I left it too late to get a real tree. So I figured if it had to be an artificial one, it was going to be totally stylized, not a pretend one. I found a piece of black material about 6' x 4', hung it on the wall, pinned on green tinsel outlining a tree, then added fairy lights and decorations. Turned out my best idea in years: it took up no space, guests didn't fall over it and the cats didn't try to climb it.

No tree nowadays, even the wall-mounted variety would overpower my small living room. Instead, I decorate the room with greenery and apply lights and decorations to that. Plus lotsa lights in the windows. And sprigs of rosemary ("for remembrance") on the family pictures.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 10:19 AM

The fashion in the UK shops at the moment is for upsidedown trees ... takes up less floor space but all the soil falls out of the pot.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 11:28 AM

I've just noticed the upside-down trees this year, although one chap I spoke to (in St. Annes) reckons they've been around a few years. Anyone know exactly how long?

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Bee
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 11:59 AM

At least ten years that I know of for the upside down trees. I think it's a visually stupid idea; cute once and ever after affected and silly and potentially disastrous - that's my highly opinionated artistic take on it, YMMV. If you've no room, take BobL's example and decorate creatively.

When I was a child, there were several kinds of evergreen club mosses (antler moss, candle fern, and a nameless trailing moss) that my family had traditionally used for decorating, but all have become scarce to rare since, so I enjoy finding them in the wild now, but never pick them. I do use tree lichen to make wreaths - very lacy and pretty, lightweight and a lovely pale sage colour. Canadian holly (winterberry) is still common enough, so I also collect that.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 12:13 PM

Ten years? Still, I dare say it takes a while for these things to filter through the cultural tundra of the North-East of England.

Here in the North-West of course, we're beginning to feel almost connected...

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: coldjam
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 01:09 PM

Bee said, "Coldjam, the trick is not to use good wine - any old red acidic wine will do, since you're going to spice it mightily and steam off half the alcohol."

And that's my point exactly!"Steam off half the alcohol"?! Next you're goin to suggest decafe coffee!

I now feel officially out of it...never even heard of up-side-down trees before today...

When we had no room for a tree, we made a huge fresh, fluffy pine garland to hang in the archway between kitchen and living room and decorated it with lights and whatever else struck our fancy.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Bee
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 03:08 PM

We lived in Florida for 1957-58, the year I was six. The best we could do for a Christmas tree was a young Austrian pine, shaped more like a gorilla than a Christmas tree. It overbalanced, engulfing my hapless mother in its shaggy embrace Christmas morning.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 03:36 PM

Paul's family have a tradition of putting the tree up on the first saturday in December and because the first saturday happened to be on the 1st this year we have ours up, but it is the only decoration we have at the moment. We'll have a few more decorations up for our Yuletide party later in the month, but I refuse to put lights up on the outside of the house making it look like Blackpool Illuminations! It's all good fun though.

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 06:01 PM

Bdfk has just sent me a link to a site for Danish traditional decorations... I feel an elf invasion is imminent.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Cats at Work
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 04:15 AM

LTS ~ can you let me have the link. There might be something interesting for my collection. Failing that I'll have to hit the ginger rum....Thanks

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: GUEST,Eye Lander
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 11:31 AM

Mmmm Traditions suppose we have some! We always have a real tree and I try and buy or make one new decoration each year. I make a lot of small cross stitched deckies in little oval frames and also the cross stitch beading kits, they are really nice. I have made bobbin lace deckies and also pinflair (sequins and pins) I try to look for things that are just a little different. Like Lizi still have my mums decorations, candle holders and the candles, tend not to light them though! Clear plastic hangers for cherubs, iccicles and stars. The fairy for the top of the tree is a bit worse for wear but she's still with us.

We have an advent calendar that has 24 items to add to the scene and the baby Jesus is obviously the last one to go on, this is always left to my friend Sue, we don't see each other that often these days but go to midnight mass on Christmas eve, she always calls in on the way to church to put him in his place.


The children always help with the tree although this year they are both in their own homes so not sure of the plan now, perhaps a new tradition. I decorate the lounge, Andy does the conservatory. Puddings usual made at half term and if I dare to think of a slightly different recipe I'll have Anna to answer to.

I love it all especially the giving of gifts. This year will be very different for us, Toby will be with his mum, Matt and Cassie and my new Grandson will be going to Cassie's mum and Anna and Ed will be popping in before they go to Ed's mum and Dad's. Andy's mum is going to join us so that will be good.

I gonenow to wrap up the christmas cake Imade yesterday. Mmm Andy always does the mince piesandsausage rolls too.


Jillie

Subject: RE: BS: decorating the Christmas tree
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 12:38 PM

I fed my pudding this morning... 2 large measures of spiced rum. Give that a week to soak in and then another 2 measures next week. We don't really do Christmas cake as such, although last year we had a sponge iceberg, complete with penguin.

Eyelander - you interested in swapping Christmas cross stitch patterns? I have made our cards for the last 3-4 years, varying between cross stitched and paper crafts, so I've acquired quite a collection of patterns.

LTS