Is it Christmas in your house yet?

29 posts / 0 new
Last post
Is it Christmas in your house yet?

We're coming into that holiday time of year and I will confess to playing some Christmas music right now as I type this post smiley

Is it too soon for you to decorate for Christmas? Or have you started getting the decorations up? I'd probably have started getting some things out, except we're traveling for Thanksgiving, so it seems like I should wait until we get back. Also we're getting a real tree this year, so you can't put those up quite so early. Actually, I don't think I can buy one yet...

What sort of tree do you have in your house. I grew up with a fake tree, so I'll confess to preferring that. Mostly because you can leave them up longer. But since we live in Oregon, the home of the Christmas tree, I guess it makes sense to have a real one. Growing up in MN I always thought the real trees people had looked weird. But here in Oregon they look like proper Christmas trees (the fake ones), so that helps as well. Maybe we'll be fancy this year and get some garland as well.

We start Christmas on December 1st.... music, shopping, decorating, and arranging various activities. As for a tree, when we all lived in Alberta, we had a big beautiful real tree every year. Once we moved to BC and downsized (1600 sq ft house to 900 sq. ft), I found a much smaller beautiful life-like fake tree. Every year since each of my children were born, I bought them a Christmas ornament. My eldest daughter is 30, and now that she has her own child, this tradition will now go to her daughter instead of her. But she has 30 ornaments marking each Christmas of her life smiley

Growing up, my family wouldn't put up the tree until Black Friday (instead of trying to hit sales), and my husband's family would put theirs up on December 1st or thereabouts. We tend to do one or the other depending on how our scheduling is around that time. Since we're American we try to give due time to Thanksgiving and not let Christmas encroach in our house. Though I will work on Christmas-related things before Thanksgiving; I just don't decorate or play the Christmas music yet.

I've currently got a pair of Christmas throw pillows I need to finish putting together from panels I picked up with my mom about three years ago, and I'm starting work on our Christmas calendar gift for our parents (which means needing to think up what Christmas page I'm going to do and staging appropriate photos of the girls for it).

My daughter asked two weeks ago if we could put up the Christmas tree! I've been trying to delay her on it, but I'm running out of ways to distract her smiley

I'm trying to follow in my mom's footsteps in making each of my kids a handmade ornament each year, to give them a small collection when they're ready to leave home. So I've started those. Aside from that, nothing goes up until Thanksgiving weekend, and my husband was actually just grumbling last night about the radio playing Christmas music on his way home from work. smiley

@Becky the Christmas Ornaments is a wonderful idea! Growing up we just had ornaments that we used every year. My husband's family doesn't hang ornaments, they hang "memories". Everything on their tree has a story. When we got married he was frustrated with our tree because the ornaments didn't have any meaning. Now 10 years later those ornaments I made do because I made them and somehow we only have about 10 of them left (they just kept jumping off the tree!).... excuse me while I go to the craft store to gather supplies to make memories/ornaments for my daughter's future tree!

I like the idea of building up an ornament collection for the kids, Becky. Very nice.

Christianna, we do something similar. When my husband and I got married, someone gifted us with a religious-related ornament for our faith as the first one to add to a tree, and someone else gifted us with an ornament labeled "Our First Christmas Together." From there, we decided that our souvenirs from special trips and events would be ornaments. We actually label each one with a small tag or similar, with the rough date (month/year) and what event it was for. I also recently took photos of every ornament so we could make a binder showing off each one with a bit more of the backstory of them laid out. I probably won't really scrapbook it, but it'll still sit on the shelf with our photo albums and my two scrapbooks.

At first we also had a small handful of random non-souvenir ornaments and a box of shatterproof balls to put on the tree, to fill things out, but now that we've been married as long as we have our souvenir collection is plenty large enough, so we donated the balls and gave the kids the other ornaments to put on their 3-foot tree they saved up to buy. We do have three ornaments for each kid to start off their future collection (one that their great-aunt sent each of them with their name or initial, one that my parents made by wood-burning a slice of tree branch, and one that I collected from the personalized snowman ornaments that Hallmark and other stores carry each year, though the snowman ones may stay on my tree even after the kids leave home).

I'll decorate December 1. smiley

In the St. Louis area, there is a radio station that is already playing non-stop Christmas music. I'm still trying to enjoy fall yet, lol. I will start decorating for Christmas with putting our tree up on Thanksgiving night. We are currently downsizing, preparing to move full time into our RV in the spring, so I got rid of most of my Christmas items, but still have sentimental items. Every year since I was born (I am 40 now), my grandma Ann has given me an ornament. I love putting them up each year, remembering her. Also, I have some ornaments from my foster children who made them in class and gave them to me. I am unable to have children, so it's nice to get these homemade ornaments too to help me remember them.

We're traveling for Thanksgiving this year, and since it's so late we won't get home again until it's already December. This has made me very nervous about missing some time for Christmas decorations. So yesterday I cleaned away all the knick knacks to make room for Christmas decorations, so I'm ready to go the minute we get back smiley I may put up a few things before we leave too, but we can't get the tree until we get back. I usually wouldn't worry too much, just keep things up later in January, but we'll be traveling then as well, so I have limited window this year to have my Christmas.

Both Jordan and my family have collected ornaments throughout our lives. Whenever we travel we try to pick something up, and for Magnus as well we've started collecting some for him as well. I'm really excited because this is the first year that I will have all my ornaments in one place. A lot of them have been in storage (actually some were lost for a few years, I only found them when we moved out a few years ago), so I'm really looking forward to setting up the tree this year.

I know I am a very small (probably only me even!) minority group, but I would be 100% okay with not decorating at all. I love to see other people's decorations but I never have the desire to decorate my own place.

i not allowed Christmas music or decorations until day after thanksgiving. but... I keep the tree up all year and change the decor on it for each holiday or season even mother and father's day. It's alot of fun, of course i only have a four ft tree. you could also use a rubber tree plant or one of those fake leafy trees you buy at micheal's crafts to blend it w/ your house better. it fun to see what kids come up with for ornaments for the different holidays. it has been a great bonding experience & many photo ops over the yrs, smiley smiley smiley

Ummmm I have been in a funk! So hubby got the trimmings out and we have already put up 1 medium sized tree, 2 small one and a tiny one... lots of shiny goodies and lights... its early I know but he knows I love Christmas and it has brightened me up heaps as I adore looking at all the lights and tinsel.... oh they are not real trees, we used real ones in England when I was a child but not here in Australia. I have taken photos but they are still on my camera (I try to fill the card up before putting on my laptop.).

Whatever makes you happy, Amanda. smiley I've listened to Christmas music in the summertime (northern hemisphere) before, just because I felt like it.

I am gonna put mine up this weekend. With the way both Bill & I have been in and out of the hospital this year. I wanted to start a little sooner. But I usually put it up Thanksgiving anyway. smiley

@Kate: Why not simplify your life? Decorating would be no fun if I thought it was a chore.

@Tamra: My mom had a year round tree for a while, and I've always wanted one. It's definitely one of my life goals. I love the idea of decorating it for every season. I also have an aunt who had a year round Santa tree. It's decorated only with Santas. At Christmas she puts up another one for less specific ornaments.

My mom doesn't do a year-round tree, but she does have two trees. One's huge and green and meant for her collection of ornaments with sentimental value collected over the years, and it goes in her living room. The other is a much smaller, skinny white one that is her "snowman" tree and is decorated only with snowman ornaments.

Ohhhhh Amanda, I just LOVE the idea of a snowman only tree! I collect Santa's and have quite a few! I'm gonna be on the look-out for a smaller tree so I can have a Santa tree! I'm so excited now lol

not until after Thanksgiving....

Usually we decorate the weekend after USA Thanksgiving.

I'm finally getting into the Xmas mood so I'll be decorating this weekend... and the "Mad Christmas Baking Marathon" will start for me next week. I do all my baking ahead of time and freeze everything so it's all ready to go when company starts popping by. But I always have to hide the goodies at the back of our big freezer so hubby doesn't start dipping into it before anyone else gets a chance to enjoy (I do my baking when he's not home so he doesn't know *snicker snicker*). He's like a kid at Christmas time... actually, truth be told, I guess we both are.

And I even have all my Christmas shopping done already, so no fighting with the crowds at the last minute. Go me! smiley

Our daughter will be flying out and spending a full week with us this year, so I'm super excited about that! I get to have my baby home for Christmas... the bestest Christmas present ever! smiley

I'm looking forward to getting home (we're still with family for the Thanksgiving holiday) and decorating and baking cookies! Please share your favorite cookies to make! I'll be doing the traditional sugar cookies, as well as Jordan's favorite honey cookies, which are similar but made with honey. I'm also looking forward to getting my spritz gun out, which I haven't used for a couple years.

Our tree and mantel decorations went up yesterday, and our exterior lights the day before. I've got some incidental wall hangings and shelf items to put up still, but the tree's the part that really makes me feel festive. smiley

Our favorite cookies are my mom's sugar cookie recipe (my husband admitted it's one of the better ones he's had, flavor- and texture-wise, better than his mom's, which is saying a lot), and my mother-in-law's gingersnap recipe that we've dubbed "ginger-crack" because they're so good you end up eating half the batch before you realize it.

Kate Lyczak - I'm in your small minority group, too! I feel the same exact way.

no not Christmas yet I live on my own and am going to spend Christmas with my daughter and family.
I have played Christmas tunes in the car when Im on my way to work.
smiley

Just got our Christmas tree up yesterday and things are starting to feel really festive around here!

We bought our tree (a real one) on the 30th and decorated it on the 1st. I have been slowly adding bits of decoration around the house since. The Christmas music is being played, and we started watching Christmas movies in the second half of November! As a card maker I make Christmas cards whenever in the year it takes my fancy so there is often a little touch of Christmas hanging around.

I never knew that you decorate the Christmas tree in your private homes in the U. S. that early.
Here in Germany we have the tradition of an Advent wreath, we light the candles at the four Sundays before Christmas and normally when it's time for the first candle than the house should be decorated too. I wait until the birthday party of my daughter because sometimes this is after the first Advent and I don't want her to have her party in a house that is already decorated for Christmas. This year her party was one day before the first Advent, so I decorated the house at Sunday morning. But I don't have a lot of Christmas decoration, I just decorate the living and the dining room, so it doesn't took me hours. My daughter has a small fake tree in her bedroom.
We have a real tree every year, it's around 9 ft high and usually we decorate it on the 23th or 24th in the morning with the whole family and we remove it at Epiphany on January 6.
Because we don't celebrate Thanksgiving and Halloween the same way as in the U.S. they start selling Advent calendars, Christmas decoration, chocolate Santas and gingerbread cookies here in September (or even earlier!) and I really don't like it because I want to enjoy the fall first before the winter and the Christmas time. And it was a pain to explain it to the kids why I don't buy the chocolate Santa Clause in September when they were younger ...

@Gonda: I think there's a big split here on people who decorate before and after Thanksgiving. Since Thanksgiving is so late in November, it's generally a good "kick-off" to the Christmas season. This year though Thanksgiving was at its latest point, so I think a lot of people who don't put decorations up before did this year. And despite whatever we are doing personally, the stores are certainly trying to sell stuff in September. Despite the fact that we have Halloween and Thanksgiving to celebrate first!

We celebrate advent as well. Anyone else lighting an advent wreath this year?