A bit early I know but...

[nancielle]

I love "real" Christmas trees but I live in an apartment and after a few years of hauling them up (and down) a couple of flights of stairs, I finally switched to an artificial tree. One of my local grocery stores gets pine scented candles in every year that really smells like pine trees so I burn those. I love lots of lights on the tree. One year though I had bought a set of lights from BJ's and they were much brighter than I expected. I could have landed a plane with that string of lights. I ended up giving them away to one of my sisters who decorates much more than I do (her kids thought the lights were cool.)

Christmas is the only holiday I decorate for. Love putting everything up, hate taking it all down in January though.

[short cut sally]

When we were first married, we decorated anything and everything, real trees and green artificial were used. All decorated with ornaments from both grandparents and my parents, all the old shiney brites. However,the artificial tree spent more and more time in the closet as xmas rolled around. The 6 foot artificial tree was given away and a few years ago was replaced with a 3 foot silver aluminum tree from the 50's. The tree is decorated with plastic strings of garland,shades of blue ornaments, and the cheesiest of lighting system is used. The color wheel. (Also from same era.) Yes, lucy from charlie brown would be happy. It is tacky but fits in my decor well. I do love decorating the house, i have vintage decorations, and love to get them all out and enjoy, but taking care of everything is such a pain. I think the older I get, the more a chore decorating seems to get. Now I know why my parents and grandparents decorated very little while I was growing up. I vowed I would'nt be like that when it came to the holidays, but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree now. I have good intentions but we'll see how far they get.

[Brandi]

All these stories are great! I love to hear what other people do or don't do. keep the stories going. Post pic's if you have any. Maybe some of us will be inspired. I would like to find a christmas bike ornament. Does anyone know where I can find one?

[Aggie_Ama]

Brandi- REI had some nice bike ornaments last year. That is where we got our paceline. It is a pewter-type. They also had a tandem and I think some others. I had to order it and have it sent to my local REI.

I will take pictures next week when the tree is up.

[MomOnBike]

Veronica,

What catalogue is that? I seriously want that tree. No needles, no fire hazards, no cats playing "You Can't Catch Me" in the branches, the pretties that we've collected and made over the course of the years actually showing, the tree itself is attractive ... sigh....

Really. I need to have that catalogue.

[spokewench]

I usually put up a 5-6 foot tree. I prefer a spruce type tree, but have used pinion, a baby ponderosa, whatever is cheapest type tree when I can't stand to spend the money on an expensive one. I work as a paralegal and one our my clients is a very large ranch in northern arizona. It is a tradition to go out to the Ranch and cut a tree every year. One of the guys usually does cowboy cooking on a fire so it is quite a gathering! So then, it is whatever looks the best as far as type of tree.

Last year, I was not able to go so I bought a small tree at one of the local christmas tree lots.

I don't really care about the ornaments too much. I really LOVE christmas lights so I put a bunch of those on and then a few ornaments. Then, my hubby who is a grinch of sorts thinks there are not enough ornaments and he will fill the branches in with ornaments. It's the only way I can get him to participate in the decorating! He's kind of ADD so it works!

[Veronica]

Veronica,

What catalogue is that? I seriously want that tree.

Really. I need to have that catalogue.

Solutions

V.

[snapdragen]

Yes Lisa! I remember lead tinsel too.

We have a huge fake tree, it's really quite pretty. The first year we put it up we didn't tell anyone. The rest of my family didn't know it was fake until they got really close, trying to smell the pine! We have ornaments from when my parents were first married (50+ years ago) on up to newer stuff. I usually buy one special ornament each year. Nothing matches, a multitude of colors - my favorite kind of tree.