BS: When do you start to decorate...

Subject: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 03:32 AM

... for Christmas. I know some people in the States start the day after Thanksgiving. I am always the one in the Christmas Spirit. I love it, except for the shopping part of course. The shops are absolutely maddening!

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Scooby Doo
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 03:39 AM

I dont decorate anymore but when i was married it would always be the 1st of December.Thats the other reason i go away for Christmas as i am on my own now.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 09:08 AM

The weekend before Christmas is plenty early enough. And take 'em down by 6th January.

Some plonker in our town had Christmas lights up and working outside his house on 30th October. He must lead a shitty, boring life.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 09:08 AM

We can't, Bradford council have banned it.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 09:11 AM

December 6. And we take 'em down, or at least turn 'em off, on January 6.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: GUEST,Blackcatter
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:15 AM

5 houses on my street already have lights up.

I just took down Hallowe'en decorations (ok, the lights are still up on the porch, but I love purple lights).

I'll start decorating after Thanksgiving. I have to decorate my new girlfiriend's condo as well. It looks out over the lake in Downtown Orlando and have quite a view.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:26 AM

I can't believe that store Santas & Salvation Army bell-ringers are out before Thanksgiving this year. Makes me want to hibernate until mid-January.

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:29 AM

Usually use the day after Thanksgiving to haul the stuff out of the closet. Some stuff gets spread around.

But we don't trim the tree until December 15th -- that's Curmudgeon and my personal tradition.

We have two anniversaries neatly separated by 6 months. Our wedding anniversary is in June. Our "Other Anniversary" which is a double anniversary of the night we met (at a party at Fishtraks recording studio) and the night a year later when we were celebrating having known each other for a year and decided to get married. (Tom didn't get around to actually asking me; we just found ourselves planning the wedding.)

So we have a nice bottle of champagne, eat some interesting noshes and trim the tree -- same as we do in June, but without the tree trimming bit.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:37 AM

Lights usually seem to go up when the weather finally turns cold enough to make the work a miserable chore. Why do it when the sun is shining? ;-) We put lights in a couple of evergreen trees out front and line the front windows with lights. Nothing fancy.

I will put decorations on the mantle sometime after the first of December. I don't do the entire house. I wait until the week before christmas to get a tree because I don't like having a dead tree in the house for weeks and weeks. Talk about a fire hazard! I also get it in the week before because the local nursery that has very good trees puts them on considerable markdown. I can usually get it for about 40% of the original price. It comes down around New Years, because like I said, it's a fire hazard. It is also much less stressful for the Nissetroll to not have to guard the tree for more than a couple of weeks. (Everybody knows that most trolls are nasty, but nissetrolls are good and guard the tree.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:56 AM

When do you Thanksgive?

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 03:32 PM

The U.S. Thanksgiving holiday is next week on Thursday, Nov. 25. It always falls on the fourth Thursday in November.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 03:44 PM

What decorating we do gets done the weekend before the holiday.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 03:49 PM

I might start this Sunday...

As long as it's after Remembrance Day I don't much mind...

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: emjay
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 03:52 PM

I love to decorate, but the boss here decreed that nothing should go up until the day after Thanskgiving, now he tries to sneak a few things up earlier, and I won't let him.
Days are already getting pretty short here in the north, so I like the extra color and lights and we leave most things up until the end of January. One year I was working away from home from New Year's Eve until May, came home a couple of times during that period though, and took the decorations down in mid-January when I came home for a weekend. I had been having nightmares about coming back in warm, light May and having to face all of them.
We use an artificial tree now and no candles. I can't be trusted with them. Went to sleep one night without blowing one out and woke to dense smoke. We actually got the fire out pretty quickly. Only one table top and everything on it were burned, but it took a long time to clean up and repair things damaged by the smoke.
For some reason, candles don't even appeal to me anymore. I still like the holly, the lights, the Santa Clauses, all the color and always manage to overdo.
And I play Christmas music incessantly. I never get too much of it. I really like the Clancy Brothers Christmas album--their Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard on High, others are beautiful.
MJ

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 04:10 PM

I start making mine by the beginning of Advent, by then, the pudding will be marinating nicely. They won't actually go up until the 21st. Hopefully this year, the mean buggers won't steal my wreath from the front door.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Once Famous
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 04:19 PM

I don't care what people do in their homes, but I wish people whouldn't force their religious beliefs on what I have to see on my street.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 04:32 PM

Mellow out, Martin. I put the Hanukka menora in the window right next to the tree.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 04:41 PM

So close yer eyes MG...

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Once Famous
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 04:49 PM

I don't care if the Hanauh menorah is out, artbrooks.

they certainly do not belong next to christmas trees.

And clinton, up yours. I don't have to close my eyes if I find something offensive. Minority religions have to put up with the bullshit.

Much of the decorations are so gaudy and garrish. they go with the spirit of the season it seems. Like the shopping aspect.

and then, so many of you wait until April to turn them off.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 06:02 PM

Awww... poor wittwe MG... the world doesn't behave EXACTLY like he'd like it too.... awwwww...

Here's a quater MG... call yourself a Whaaaaaammmbulance... or someone to come build you a bridge so you can get the hell over it...

X-mas... The 'Holiday Season'.. what ever you wanna call it... is like anything else... you get out of it what you WANT to get out of it...

Make of it what you will, and let others do the same...

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: maire-aine
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 06:17 PM

as soon as I get the house-cleaning finished-- usually around mid-May

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: GUEST,jacqui.c
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 06:18 PM

We won't this year as we'll be in the UK. I've got really fed up with seeing decorations everywhere from November onward that I tend not to decorate in protest. Taking them down and packing them away is a total pain in the ass as well! Call me Scrooge, I don't care!

When my kids were small and I was a single parent the decorations went up on Christmas Eve. I told the kids that, as they didn't have a father to put them up Santa Claus's fairies came round and put them up. The advantage was that Christmas morning the sitting room was all bright with decorations, fresh and new, and they hadn't got so used to them that they didn't 'see' them on the day.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Emma B
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 07:03 PM

When I cared for elderly relatives we never got a Yuletide to ourselves so we always threw a party for friends the first weekend in December and decorated the house early, tree and all. Nowadays the tradition has remained - and the party; but most of all I regret taking them down at Advent as they make the place so light and cheerful when it's so dark and miserable outside.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: JennieG
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 07:13 PM

We have never decorated really early. Our younger son's birthday is December 2 so when our boys were small we usually started to put up a few things the following weekend no matter which day of the week the aforesaid birthday fell! Now both sons have moved out, the younger plans to be in Canada by Christmas, and we will be sweltering in Sydney with minimal decorations - I am usually the one to put them out and (of course) to take them down and pack them away again. But there are houses near us that are already ablaze with bright lights every evening.
Cheers and Bah Humbug
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 08:24 PM

Seems to be a few Scrooges here. Well, as long as they don't infiltrate my party I don't mind...

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: jimmyt
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 08:44 PM

we will have a housefull of family visiting from Ohio, and 25 for Thanksgiving so my wife likes to get all the decorating done ahead of that. We will have a 12 foot tree which is formidable in its own right. I remember the days when you could do the whole thing in a couple hours.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Gypsy
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 09:35 PM

I love the lights and glitter at such a dark time of the year.......i put up AFTER thanksgiving, and take down new years day. Nice to start off the year clean. Since we are FULL dark by 4:30 or 5:00 right now, lights are a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 03:50 AM

Diving to and from my gig tonight, I spun the Jethro Tull X-mas CD in the car... man, what a damn fine piece of music!

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 03:50 AM

"Minority religions have to put up with the bullshit."

So do Atheists and Agnostics.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 04:02 AM

I didn't even know Tull had an Christmas disc!

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 04:24 AM

http://www.j-tull.com/news/christmasalbum.cfm

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: bbc
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 08:43 AM

chris, I don't think I'm really a Scrooge. It's just that the secular Christmas is very in-your-face. I am a Christian & I celebrate the holiday religiously.

best,

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 09:08 AM

"secular Christmas is very in-your-face"

Mine isn't...

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: bbc
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 09:43 AM

Well, Clinton, if I have to buy food or anything else in the stores between mid-November & mid-January, it sure is, here! Whatever decorating people do at their homes is fine w/ me.

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 12:02 PM

Thanks to Tom Lehrer:

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say when.
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.

On christmas day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Relations, sparing no expense'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
Just the thing I need! how nice!
It doesn't matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.

Hark the herald tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry, merchants,
May you make the yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!

So let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend kris kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 12:56 PM

"Christmas" decorations rarely have anything to do with the Christian religious holiday that comes at approximately the same time of year. While I make no claim to be an expert on the Bible, can someone point out the chapter and verse that discusses Santa Claus, raindeer and snowmen? It is true that there are angels and creches, but there are many more decorated fir trees and holly branches, both pagan traditions.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 01:11 PM

I'm not really a religious person. I like the spirit of the season more than anything else.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:15 PM

Christ, if he was born at all, was most likely born sometime in the spring...   So Santa Clause, reindeer, and snowmen have just as much 'claim' to the season...

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 05:03 PM

We were driving home last night and were shocked to see lights already up at one place. We spent the rest of the drive home thinking up words to describe people who put up their Christmas lights even before Thanksgiving, and some of them weren't very nice. Obnoxious, irritating, downright unnatural, tacky, uncool...you get the drift.

I agree with SRS that one week before is soon enough to get a tree. If it were up to me, I'd trim the tree on Christmas Eve, but I let the kids do it earlier if they wish. When they were younger, I did more in the way of decorating, but now a tree and some indoor lights are enough. The more pressure I feel from the holiday marketers, the less I want to do. We also don't make too many Christmas goodies and cookies anymore - so many friends are on diets that we instead make about 15-20 pounds of garlic-cheese and liver treats and pass out goodies for all their good little dogs and cats.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 05:14 PM

Oh, I LOVE trimming the tree X-mas Eve... but other decorations can go up earlier!

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 08:14 AM

The usage of Chistmas decorations apart from the tree spreads out here in my German home town since some years due to the influence of the US garrison, but it's still moderate.
Since the last Sunday befor Advent 1st is Dead's Sunday (today), nobody in his right senses would start before.
To please my children I used to put an illuminated Sta Claus (got it from a pub) in the window at St. Nicholas's eve until Boxing Day.
In former years I started to decorate the tree on Dec. 23, but had to change to the morning of Dec. 24 because we needed sitting and dining rooms to celebrate my younger daughter's birthday with a party.
I don't think not decorating the house is scroogy; it's only giving up to utterly unnecessary peer pressure.

Enjoy the coming of the Lord!
Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:31 AM

I always liked to decorate on Christmas Eve so the kids came down to fairy land on Christmas morning but now we always go away the day after boxing day so I put them up the weekend before Christmas to give them a bit longer. Always take them down for 12th night (Jan 6th) though. At school we put everything up on 1st Dec but have to take it all down the day before term ends which is a very strange feeling!!

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 01:22 PM

My mother always told us about her family going out and cutting a tree a day or two before Christmas and putting it up an decorating on Christmas Eve. I think she was hoping we'd take the hint, but we always wanted one earlier.

The shape of christmas trees has changed drastically since I was a child. In my mind's eye the ideal tree was the one we had when I was about nine-years-old. This would have been in the mid-1960s, and it was a natural silver fir (rather pixelated) or more likely, grand fir, (here is another) meaning it had well-spaced branches that extended fairly perpendicular to the bole, and the whorls represented each year's growth. From this tree we hung just glass balls, shiny metalic colors, and nothing else. You could see through the tree, so they were within the as well as out at the end of the branches. Today's growers prune the trees so havily to get the meristem material to branch out and there is no way you can do anything but stick ornaments to the outer layer of the densely-branched cone. You can hardly detect the whorls. Some of these can be quite lovely, but are no match for that perfect tree of my childhood.

I've handed the decorating of the tree over to the kids the last couple of years. They really enjoy it.

SRS

(Here is a photo of new growth on a silver fir (Abies amabilis) and look at the trillium leaves on the forest floor beneath it--how nice!)

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: GUEST,skipy
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 05:00 PM

Probably around the 14th pint mark.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Once Famous
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 08:58 PM

Clinton

Have yourself a shitty little Christmas.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:00 PM

A week before Christmas. This usually attracts a few neighbours as Yuletide decorations are not the norm in houses here. Also need to retain the cat that the tree is not a good place to play hide and seek.

Shops decorate about two weeks before Christmas, but really it is a money earning exercise as often the locals ask me what it is all about.

If anyone can send me a few music CD's that could replace the awfull crap that gets played in the shops and supermarkets here I would be eternally in your debt. They seem to have only one particular music CD available in the whole of China and that is mostly ghastly bloody Disney themes sung by those Chipmunk characters who sound like they are on E. Oops ranting there a bit.

The decorations come down on New Years day so we can decorate for Chinese New Year.

Have a good Yuletide anyway folks.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:36 PM

In my locale, Santa goes to work at the mall on the Saturday before Thanksgiving (i.e., yesterday).

I've been a Santa for a couple of years, but won't be doing it this time around. My facial hair isn't all the way back after neck cancer & radiatiton treatment earlier in the year, and I'm not really up to working two jobs at a time yet. My Santa-employers assure me that I can have the job back next year.

While I've been glad to take such an early start on Christmas on a professional level, as private citizens the missus and I firmly believe in a later, more civilized start. The lights around the door go up in mid-December, and the tree and other indoor stuff waits even longer, until about one week before C-Day.

We are pretty strict about taking everything down on Little Christmas, aka Feast of the Epiphany or Twelfth Night -- January 6 -- which is also the first day of Carnival (Mardi Gras) season here where such things are celebrated.

Many of our neighbors strike the set earlier, on New Years Day, but we're not ready at that point to abandon the holiday spirit. Of course, they generally have their stuff way earlier than we do, so it all comes out equal.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 01:42 AM

Seeing as apparently, the mods here at Mudcat will tolerate flame-wars, I'll sink your sucky baby level...

" Have yourself a shitty little Christmas."

You first, MG... Oh wait... look... you already are... Good...

I hope you get cancer along with it

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 01:52 AM

There is certainly a striking contrast in the discussion between Martin and Clinton and the one the rest of us are participating in. Obviously the Scrooge impersonators are out as early as all of the other stuff.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: emjay
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 02:11 AM

Put them up or don't, think of it as a religious holiday or pagan, do whatever you want. I'm not going to worry about it whichever way you choose.
I'm still going to overdecorate and enjoy the heck out of it. That way I get the house cleaned twice in a year. I have to clean to put the decorations up, and when I put them away, I have to do it again. This way I am happy about it both times.
And I want you all to enjoy the midwinter any way that suits you. So have a Happy solstice when it comes.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 02:14 AM

"Obviously the Scrooge..."

I'm no Scrooge... I LOVE X-mas!

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: PoppaGator
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 02:27 AM

Yuletide is something entirely different from the celebration of the birth of Christ, and it's much older.

Don't blame the pagans and secular humanists for this, please. It's the Church that decided to co-opt Yule by scheduling Christmas four days after the winter solstice.

To me, this wonderful holiday season is all about love, hope, the innocence of childhood, peace on earth, goodwill to all, poultry and alcohol. It allows more than enough room for all of us to participate, regardless of religious belief.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 02:32 AM

Cheers Poppa. My (holiday) sentiments exactly. And I love Christmas as well CH...

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Once Famous
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 04:22 PM

It's not my holiday. And there is nothing good on TV.

Have a great midnight mass in your shorts, Clinton.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 05:18 PM

Have a good Dec. 8, Martin.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Once Famous
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 05:27 PM

Actually the first night is December 7., SRS.

Hanukah is a very minor holiday in the Jewish calender.

It is far from commercialized and basically is just the retelling of a story and a miracle.

Stores are not open extended hours because of it.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 06:29 PM

My calendar came from the garage (from getting my oil changed), so I am not surprised if it isn't completely accurate (it did have some good photos this year, though). I have several friends who make sure they're home before dark for those holidays. Sending a Hallmark "Happy Hanukkah" card to them just doesn't quite work for me, but my holiday cards are never religious in nature and are simply the vehicle to get my annual letter out to folks.

That letter constitutes a source of news for friends, but since I receive so many holiday letters in return that often mention people I've never met or heard of and places I've never seen, I take a lesson from those and work to make sure that my letter provides clues and stay brief enough to hold the reader's attention. (This despite my lengthy discourse here at Mudcat that might tend to counter that claim of brevity.) That's a big part of my holiday preparation that no one is going to see from the street. I include cartoons I've clipped during the year that help illustrate where our lives are now and scan in photos.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Peace
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 06:34 PM

I start to decorate just after the seventh double.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: open mike
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:24 PM

the year my parents died all i could bring myself to
put up was a tree which had died in a fire the previous
summer...it was a skeleton of a tree...bare, naked branches.
it expressed my sentimants at the time....bare bones...
when the kids were little there was always a (living)tree
that we would hike to find and cut...
with ornaments which were filled with memories...
i always make a few wreaths....grape vines...
with (bay) Laurel leaves inserted and red Toyon Berries
for color...smells and looks festive.
the one on the door now has dried red chili pepper pods
and dried hydrangea flowers mixed in...

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 02:18 AM

About the time I begin to festoon.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 04:20 AM

How can a cut tree be 'living'? You've just killed it by cutting it!

If you want a real tree, buy one that has been pot grown. And that means grown from seedling in a pot, not one that has been uprooted, had it's roots slashed and then stuffed into a pot 3 sizes too small.

A real, pot grown tree has the advantages that if you water it regularly, it doesn't drop as many needles. You can tell when it needs watering when it starts to drop. It will smell nicer, of pine, rather than dying wood. It will be greener and brighter. You get a lovely potted plant until March when you can put it out in the garden again.

We've got a tree in our garden that was purchased by my mother about 8 years ago. It was one of those horribly snowsprayed 'tabletop' trees, that some stores sell ready decorated. She kept it well watered and planted it in a bigger pot. I adpoted it when she emigrated. It lives outside all year round now. This year we may bring it in and decorate it.... it's been a bit bald what with the weather and all, and it's an odd, round shape..... but it's a living tree that represents all that living things should.

ShanghaiCeltic - try
The Bells of Dublin ~ The Dubliners , one of the best anti-Kings College Cambridge CDs available.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Joybell
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 05:46 PM

I have this fascination with opposites.   The idea that a celebration of a humble birth in a lowly stable brings out the most extreme frenzy of ostentatious display in some people, and in whole communities, draws me in somehow. Funny because I spend a lot of my time peering at tiny native flowers through a magnifying glass and watching the affairs of ants and the like. Deserts greatly appeal to me.
For just a few hours on Christmas Eve we'll walk the streets of the little town nearby singing carols and looking at the pretty lights. The residents of the town are rather more restrained than those of the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne so I won't get to indulge myself as I used to when we lived in the city.
Yesterday I bought three bags of decorations from the thrift shop - old-fashioned ones - little wooden angels and snowmen and older-style coloured balls. Someone has cleaned out Grandma's house it seems and not had any time for such lowtech objects. Wouldn't match the electric display. Our gain. Today I'll hang them in The Dell - a small area under an overhanging Meleluca tree. Magpies will make off with the most colouful ones probably. Joy

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 07:44 PM

That's always struck me too Joybell... we celebrate the birth of what was ostensibly an illegitimate child, in overcroweded conditions, where we wouldn't park our cars now, by spending a month's wages on useless gifts that (if some of the ones we have received are anything to go by) will still be in the box NEXT Christmas.

A birth in a barn/stable/cave is commemorated by turning houses into foul, garish, ugly monuments to commercialism with lights, glitter, paper and tinsel... creating light polluting monstrosities that burn enough power to keep a soup kitchen going for a year. We didn't have any tree lights until Limpit was born, and even now, we keep them to a maximum of 2 strings at a time....

The older I get, the more disillusioned I am with the way the human race celebrates this day....

I know I have tins of baubles and tons of garlands, (usually bought in the January sales) but I use the same ones year after year, and some of those baubles I've had since I was a child... at least three can be dated back to 1930something, when my grandmother hung them on her tree, when she was first married.

Hopefully, those baubles will still be around when Limpit hangs them on her tree for the first time.

Every year I try to make some kind of decoration, whether it be things to decorate the tree or a wreath for the front door, but it's usually made with what he have in the house, or what I can find in the garden, or fabric that's been lying around the house for years. Something that's been made from scratch, that's different and that can be kept and passed on. This year, I've spent a great deal of time making cards that, for the first time, I'm going to try selling. A percentage (20% to be exact) of the money will go towards a charity, and that's my present. The rest will go towards materials to make more for next year.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Cats at Work
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 06:59 AM

I usually put up the decorations on the Saturday before Christmas which is usually the day after we break up but always in time for Solstice. (Not this year though, we break up on 22nd Dec.) I decorate with real holly, ivy, mistletoe and greenery from the garden or local woods. My tree is always real and is decorated with my huge collection of 'christmas' decorations from all over the world. Friends and family bring me something for my tree from wherever they visit just as long as it is obviously from that country, a piece of zulu beadwork, a koala bear, a turkish eye. It's like putting friends into my house and having them there all over the festive season. They come down after Old Christmas Day, remembering how we had our 11 days 'stolen', a few years ago, well a few hundred years ago actually ... So, if any Catters would like to be part of my mid - winter celebrations, I'll gratefully receive additions to my collection. pm for address.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Joybell
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 04:55 PM

Cats I'd love you to have the little kangaroo I found among my thrift-shop treasures. You've already got a koala to keep him company. Cheers Joy

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Cats
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 05:09 PM

Thanks, Joybell. Ive pm'd with an address. I promise to give him a good home.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Charmion
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 07:58 PM

On the third Sunday in Advent I buy a wreath in the market on our way home from church and put it on the door. That's usually the signal to start rooting in the cellar for decorations, and the tree comes from the market on the fourth Sunday in Advent. It goes up on Christmas Eve and comes down on Epiphany. We have lots of neighbours who string thousands of lights around their houses and leave them up all winter (actually, in Ottawa that's rather a good idea at least until well into February), so we don't bother.

Fruitcake, on the other hand, starts now -- Advent I is the day after tomorrow, and if I'm to produce enough for everyone who likes it (a surprisingly large number), I have to get baking. We have a friend who goes deer hunting in October, and he gives us venison chops, steaks, and even sometimes a roast every year in exchange for a whole fruitcake at Christmas. And there are the relatives ... and us!

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Gypsy
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 10:46 PM

Well, all the doggie biscuits are made (i've been threatened with mayhem by the barknwoofen in the neighbourhood if i quit) 4 cases of strawberry jam are canned, and the baking is almost done. We aren't big on spending $$$ this time of the year, they don't exist. We make and bake, and work with the homeless/elderly. Oh yeah, on the latter, that is NOT seasonal. Just gets noticed this time of the year.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 12:53 PM

I have really been enjoying this thread. Would love to have a gently decorated place but around here the custom is throw up lots of lights day after Thanksgiving and spend tons on the rest.
I like the idea of using Advent Sundays as triggers to put a little something up, instead of some big obnoxious marathon work session.

I may look into that bay laurel thing, I have some grapevine wreaths from the nearby woods, but they definitely need some oomph.

I read something yesterday about giving a gift that involves your time, like give a kid a little fishing rod PLUS a promise to take them fishing, etc. We need lots more of that, lots less plastic junk. Fortunately, the extended family did a 'draw-names-and-$200-limit' thing this year, which means I don't have to invest 40 hours in gift shopping.

I would love to have people over for a tree trimming in the week before Christmas, but once we got deathly ill with flu and that wrecked it, and once we ran it up the flagpole and everybody was aghast that we wanted to tread on their precious shopping/family time that seems to begin Dec. 8 or so. (Every other Christmas thing must be 'gotten over with' in November or the first week in December. So sad.)

"Cats", don't the Turks mind when you put their eyes on the tree??? what's that all about?

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 07:00 PM

Puddin's are done, can't find the Advent candles (starts tomorrow with the 1st Sunday), haven't finished making as many cards as I'd like, no-where to put the tree except in the garden, so it may as well stay there, and if I make the door wreath I was going to, some bastard will steal it off the door again.

Here's a little tip for bird lovers. Trim a tree or bush in your garden for the birds. Use strings of plain popped corn, cranberries or rose hips, small fat & seed baubles (melt dripping or lard or bacon fat in a pan, add bird seeds and mix well, shape by hand into baubles and when setting, thread onto a loop of string.) and decorate the chosen tree. It's pretty, it's edible (and bio-degradable if you don't use plastic string) and the birds will love their Christmas present.

Make sure there's water handy too.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Joybell
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 08:04 PM

Great idea Liz. Here of course it's blazing hot so the water is the important present for the birds. Berries and seeds cover the bushes and the honey-rich shrubs like Banksias and Bottle brushes are in full flower. The place is decorated just as the birds and insects like it. Mostly red and green too. Just right for Christmas. I put my thrift-shop decorations in The Dell. Had to tread carefully near the hang-out of The Big Tiger Snake. It seems a bit like Eden here sometimes. Joy

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 09:23 PM

whoops, I meant $20 limit on gift spending, not $200. Sticky 0-key on my beloved northgate keyboard.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: maire-aine
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 12:15 AM

Usually I've started by now. Last year I took day after Thanksgiving and the whole following week off as a vacation and did everything. I'd love to have a real tree, but I'd forget to water it, so I have a nice looking artificial one-- it's safer that way. I cut some branches from my holly bushes and my pine tree outside and bring them in. And I found out last year that there's a guy at the farmers' market that has fresh mistletoe. I wrap it in netting so the the berries won't fall to the floor where the cats could get them.

This year I'm having some remodeling done, so I can't start decorating yet. I'll get my Christmas cards in the mail this week. I don't bake as much as I used to-- the kitchen in this house is a lot smaller than the old house. I found a bakery that makes Springerles. I used make them myself, but they're supposed to dry overnight, and I don't have a place where I could lay them out without the cats getting into them.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Joybell
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 05:32 PM

What are Springerles marie-aine? Cats just love Christmas don't they? All those hanging baubles to chase. Joy

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: LilyFestre
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 06:43 PM

We generally decorate whenever the mood strikes. I would love to put some lights up outside on our house and have never been about to because we didn't have gutters for the little clippy things that hold the lights. This spring we got gutters so now I can put up lights up if I want!!! :) I don't like tons of Christmas things around the house. I have a creche that my Nana brought back from Germany along with a wooden Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, Wisemen and animals that ALWAYS is put up first. The tree is covered with old family ornaments and then I put out whatever else I find tucked away and if I can find a space to put it.

While I love to decorate for Christmas, I almost am more happy with my house when it's all put away safely for next year. It seems overwhelming sometimes and I am always glad to "get my house back."

As for the religious things that some have issues with during this time of year....I guess I piss them off all year long as I have my religious stuff out all year long....cross surrounded by candles, wooden Joseph leading a donkey with Mary on the back, etc. I have a Bible on the counter in the kitchen at this very moment...I figure it's my house and I'll put out whatever I want. It's important to me and if it doesn't suit you, then look somewhere else or head on out.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: Cats at Work
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 05:47 AM

Guest...The 'Turkish Eyes' are the symbols of peace and prosperity. They are usually blue with a black and white swirl pattern in the glass. very beautiful and from a culture that does not celebrate Christmas as such.

Thanks to those Catters who have pm'd with offers of interesting things to hang on my tree from around the world. Those catters who are with us over Christmas and New Year (Our Official House Warming Party) will have them pointed out to them.

Subject: RE: BS: When do you start to decorate...
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 08:48 AM

My fiancee and I were listening to "Long Forgotten" while decorating our tree last night. It was perfect...