Christmas Tree Traditions

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AnnaMarie

AnnaMarie

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Feb 16, 2012
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When my husband was young, he felt a bit resentful that his birthday was kind of swept under the carpet because it was so close to Christmas. (When I say a bit, I do mean a very small bit, not a big issue, but something he remembered feeling.)

So, when our child was born even closer to Christmas, we decided Christmas did not start until after his birthday. That meant the tree went up December 23. Until the year he was about 8 or 9 and he asked if we could please put the tree up earlier like "normal" people. It seems whatever parents do....the kids want the opposite, lol. Now...his wife decorates early, and he complains, but I think secretly he's glad.
 
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blunthead

blunthead

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Aug 2, 2006
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My family, especially Mom, loved the holidays, which to us included Thanksgiving as well as Christmas as a unit, and we all became kind of manic this time of year. Good for us. Mom's annual habit was to start thinking Tree at or even before Thanksgiving. Dad was the same, though as a wise man he busied himself, allowing Mom to orchestrate things since she wanted to and since it was work. The kids, me anyway, remained involved to the extent required by my own need to celebrate. (Come to think of it I don't know what the holidays amounted to for my three sisters, I mean other than the Thanksgiving turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy; and the TV specials: the animated movie Gulliver's Travels (1939) for me, for all of us The Wizard of Oz.)

My folks, especially Dad, liked wine. Not to excess, mind you, but enough for it to as his son interest me; so, as a young adult a real element of my celebration of the Christmas holiday meant I want some wine. Dad also loved classical music, so there was The Nutcracker, by Tchaikovsky, and Handel's Messiah. My fondest memories of the holidays are as a young-adult-late-teen sitting alone in the living room in the dark except for the lights around the glorious tree drinking dry red wine and listening to Handel's Messiah.
 
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skimom2

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
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We ease into the season :) Advent wreath (though I forgot to get the candles to light the first one tonight--will get some tomorrow) and special prayers every night at dinner is the beginning, maybe a little Christmas music. By next weekend, we'll start decorating, a bit at a time. We compromise on the tree: Beloved was used to having it on Thanksgiving evening, with all white, no twinkle lights. My family never put the tree up before my moms birthday (Dec. 14), colored lights that twinkle. SO...we put the tree up the second weekend in Dec, with white, twinkling lights :) Not sure if we'll do one or two trees this year; we have so many ornaments (kid made or given by family/friends), and I have a hard time leaving any in the boxes. By the third weekend, the house is a winter wonderland. Makes me happy to think about it, to be honest. Every night, LilMan picks a couple of books from the big basket of Christmas stories, and we read them by tree light. Ms.19 is very into co-ordinating wrapping, so we might have individual paper for each person, or she might decide to go with kraft paper this year, with identifying ribbons for each person. Christmas jimmies have their own, special wrapping so they get unwrapped Christmas Eve. Santa brings one present, and the rest are from mom & dad, siblings, etc. MIL usually does a Christmas Eve thingy at her house, but not sure this year--SIL, BIL, and hubs are in a cold war right now, and no one is speaking to one another (that's a not-so-good thing).
 
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niro

niro

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Apr 5, 2013
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AnnaMarie said:
I made this one. It covers the tree stand.

View attachment 13346
Click to expand...

Beautiful! :smile:

blunthead said:
My family, especially Mom, loved the holidays, which to us included Thanksgiving as well as Christmas as a unit, and we all became kind of manic this time of year. Good for us. Mom's annual habit was to start thinking Tree at or even before Thanksgiving. Dad was the same, though as a wise man he busied himself, allowing Mom to orchestrate things since she wanted to and since it was work. The kids, me anyway, remained involved to the extent required by my own need to celebrate. (Come to think of it I don't know what the holidays amounted to for my three sisters, I mean other than the Thanksgiving turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy; and the TV specials: the animated movie Gulliver's Travels (1939) for me, for all of us The Wizard of Oz.)

My folks, especially Dad, liked wine. Not to excess, mind you, but enough for it to as his son interest me; so, as a young adult a real element of my celebration of the Christmas holiday meant I want some wine. Dad also loved classical music, so there was The Nutcracker, by Tchaikovsky, and Handel's Messiah. My fondest memories of the holidays are as a young-adult-late-teen sitting alone in the living room in the dark except for the lights around the glorious tree drinking dry red wine and listening to Handel's Messiah.
Click to expand...

That's some nice memories to hold on to. :love:
 
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Pucker

Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
May 9, 2010
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I guess I'm just a pagan holdover. Trimming the tree is the very essence of Christmas to me -- was the very essence of Christmas to us -- and whatever other crazy seasonal nonsense took place, Christmas Eve was always about the tree and the popcorn and the cranberries and the little wooden toys and the egg nog, and it wasn't ever about anything else. I suppose that was more my wife and I wanting to have a "tradition" that was all our own, and separate from the way our individual families had approached this activity. The tree didn't have to come down at any specific time, but it always went up on the 24th.

I don't decorate a tree anymore, but I do like to bring wreaths and spruce tips in to have that particular pine scent in the house. It's amazing to me what a nose can remember.
 
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Grandpa

Grandpa

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Mar 2, 2014
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We put up decorations around the house. In years that I'm feeling industrious and have the time and it's not too cold, I put up exterior lights. I love the look of the lights around the neighborhood at night and want to contribute to it.

When the kids were growing up, we had fireplaces in our homes. Actual wood-burning fireplaces. Sometime after Christmas, we would denude** the tree of ornaments and tinsel, break it up, and feed it into the fireplace. Lovely smell of pine wood burning.

We don't have a fireplace anymore, and we got tired of tree needles in the carpet. We have an artificial tree that the grandkids come over and help assemble and decorate. The one constant is the tree skirt. It's black with Santa and the reindeer, including Rudolph, sewn on, a lasting crafts venture of my mother. We have ornaments from when the kids were kids - and from when I was a kid too.

On Christmas Eve, if the kids were awake, we let them open one present late at night. Once we became empty nesters, we told the kids to build their own Christmas traditions at their own houses. But they come over in the afternoon for Christmas dinner. Then we have our second gift exchange. It's bonus time for the grandkids.

We don't do much Christmas movie-watching, but while we're together, I will always play the Tchaikovsky segment from Fantasia. Love that piece (except for the fish part).


**I never understood why "denude" has the meaning that it does. To me, it should mean "to make not bare" or "remove the nudity." If you wanted to strip away the accouterments from something, I'd say it would be "declothe."
 
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HollyGolightly

HollyGolightly

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advent%20wreath%202015_zpsnuxif7wg.jpg


Aha! There we go! Advent Wreath at Chez Holly. I'm in the market for some nice purple and pink place mats but not having any luck. I might have to paint some (like you would a floorcloth).
 
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HollyGolightly

HollyGolightly

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blunthead said:
It's very interesting to me that between you and hubby, while you're the more recent convert, you take the traditions more seriously. Also, I wonder how true it is that you can't stand setting up the tree as early as hubby wants. Maybe a compromise would help, maybe he can have the tree early and you can have it late, plus the candles. If you and hubby can compromise I think maybe the others might follow.

As for the wreath and the candles, I say do your thing, enjoy your faith. I think my mom would have and I'd have been grateful.
Click to expand...

Ah, blunty, would that all it took to get my way would be to say "I can't stand it". I don't call him the Ogre because he's tall and green. We do compromise - We'll put the tree up probably Dec 12th this year. BUT I do get my way with keeping it up through Epiphany. On that, I am adamant. I will say, and I bet skimom2 would concur, converts are often more "hardcore" Catholics than cradle Catholics. We learned all the things as adults. My husband couldn't tell you exactly what Epiphany is. He just followed the rules. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

On another note: yesterday while we were doing house stuff, I complained about how he had moved my reading recliner out of our bedroom and into the living room, and put the living room chair and ottoman in our daughter's bedroom and moved the ugly blue chair from our daughter's room into our room. It's been that way for months and I've found that my reading time suffers. So while I cooked dinner, he moved them all back to where they should be. Upon noting my surprise, he said to me "I'm not fighting you on these things anymore". Hmmm....I've got myself a trump card, then. I'll carry it in my pocket forever.
 
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Kurben

Kurben

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Apr 12, 2014
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Well, we have Advent wreaths that are hung on on the door to the house. Also Christmas stars, red or white lights formed like stars that you hang in your windows. It offers a welcoming Light in The darkness from ever house. We Kinda prefer live trees here, the christmas is a newly chopped down tree there are special plantations, that you bring home, usually around the 20,th . It stands for about a month if watered and then we throw it out which is a special occasion too. Then there the Christmas bride, Lucia, celebrations on the 13,th of december when we drink a special kind of like, glögg, with raisins and nuts. Lucia is always dressen in White with a red belt around her waist and live candles in her hair. She is follows by her Maiden and Starboys. This a celebrations of Light, not of Christian origin i think, which we sourly miss in the winter.
 
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TheRedQueen

TheRedQueen

And Crazy Housewife
Dec 3, 2014
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It's funny, seeing holiday birthdays mentioned. Mine is either on Thanksgiving or one day in either direction, so I always had the best birthday dinner ever, along with presents. I don't remember ever caring that my birthday fell splat in a major holiday.
My mom, on the other hand, has her birthday the week before Christmas. She told me that as a kid, she almost always got ignored on her birthday because of this. So, I made it a point to give my mom a birthday every year. I'd bake her a cake, my stepdad would actually be decent and take us all out to dinner, and for three years running we got to watch the LOTR movies in theater. And in return, Christmas lasted in our house from Black Friday to sometime after New Years.
I still remember how much life my mom brought to the holidays. She's the one that made them special, no matter when your birthday fell.
Of course, I took that and turned into a Scrooge; I refuse to have anything to do with Christmas until December first.

Wait, it is December first! Merry Christmas month everybody! :biggrin2:
 
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