GTKY: Tell me about your Christmas tree.

likeanoldtimemovie · November 2013

Real? Fake? White lights? Colored lights? Both?

Themed? Homemade ornaments? All purple and gold?

Ours is always real, always both kinds of lights, along with twinkling, homemade ornaments AND nice ones and tinsel thrown all over it. Some people think it looks tacky. I effing love it.

Although, I'm totally buying a small fake one for my kitchen so I can do a THEMED kitchen tree. SQUEE.

mbRN83 · November 2013

Ours is real, colored lights, and different ornaments that we've collected throughout the years. My mom gave me my childhood ornaments when we got married.

It's also TIED WITH FISH LINE TO THE WALL because of my insane cats. We also can't decorate the bottom two feet. I've found ornaments in my bed before from them.

TigerLily12345 · November 2013

Always real.

A mix of colored & white lights.

Definitely not matchy-matchy ornaments. I have my childhood ornaments (one each year, usually have my name & year on them) plus ones we have collected from our travels. I also collect the yearly Swarovski snowflake ornaments. Someday they might get their own smaller tree.

I don't put the tree up until December.

jnnfrrose6 · November 2013

Real tree. I grew up going out and cutting down our own tree. Tried to do that with the hubs for our first Christmas not in NYC. It was a spectacular failure. Maybe we can try again now that we have a kid? Colored lights and ALL.THE.ORNAMENTS. At some point, I'll get a "grown up" tree too and do white lights and a theme (my mother has an angel tree that's beautiful to go along with her family tree of everything). I'm also thinking about getting a small fake tree for our dining room and doing the 12 days of Christmas now that I've got room for it in a house.

likeanoldtimemovie · November 2013

mbRN83 said:

Ours is real, colored lights, and different ornaments that we've collected throughout the years. My mom gave me my childhood ornaments when we got married.

It's also TIED WITH FISH LINE TO THE WALL because of my insane cats. We also can't decorate the bottom two feet. I've found ornaments in my bed before from them.

When I would get off the bus in the fifth grade, every single day, our tree was laying on the floor with one of the cats trapped under it. There's still a huge screw in the middle of the window pane where my mom tied fishing line from the trunk to the window.

tourqeyes · November 2013

Ours is fake and I go with white silver and red theme on our tree.

& only white lights.

RichLab · November 2013

ours is fake, it is the first tree we got when we moved in together 4years ago in Fl, so i am attached to it, but it has seen better days :-) my Golden chewed up the pre attached lights on it as a puppy so a few branches won't light up. Of course, we added more lights, all white, and now i officially have only random ornaments we have bought while traveling. it used to have the plastic ornaments cos of our dog but he has since stopped chewing on them and now we can have a "grown up" tree :-) i do susperct with the baby we will have to go back to non glass ornaments, but we will cross that bridge later.

likeanoldtimemovie · November 2013

jnnfrrose6 said:

Real tree. I grew up going out and cutting down our own tree. Tried to do that with the hubs for our first Christmas not in NYC. It was a spectacular failure. Maybe we can try again now that we have a kid? Colored lights and ALL.THE.ORNAMENTS. At some point, I'll get a "grown up" tree too and do white lights and a theme (my mother has an angel tree that's beautiful to go along with her family tree of everything). I'm also thinking about getting a small fake tree for our dining room and doing the 12 days of Christmas now that I've got room for it in a house.

Looove the 12 Days of Christmas tree idea. I might steal this.

INmommy871278 · November 2013

It's fake this year, I got tired of sweeping pine needles all yet long so I bought a fake one last year on clearance. Colored lights!! Ornaments are an array of ornaments home made, bought, old, new, all sorts of ornaments!

DH thinks I over decorate the tree, but you can never have too many ornaments! Oh and candy canes, the good sweet tart ones...no mint candy canes here due to allergies.

likeanoldtimemovie · November 2013

Oh! Does anyone put small, fake trees in your kids' rooms? Both of ours want one in their room and we let them pick out the mini ornaments, tree skirt and star toppers from Wal*Mart. Growing up, we had sacks at the end of our bed that Santa put a few gifts in so we would know he was there and the rest would be under the tree. We're thinking of putting some small ones under our kids' mini Christmas trees in their room now and the rest out under the big tree.

Our seven-year-old DD picked pink and white zebra ornaments because of course she did.

likeanoldtimemovie · November 2013

INmommy871278 said:

It's fake this year, I got tired of sweeping pine needles all yet long so I bought a fake one last year on clearance. Colored lights!! Ornaments are an array of ornaments home made, bought, old, new, all sorts of ornaments! DH thinks I over decorate the tree, but you can never have too many ornaments! Oh and candy canes, the good sweet tart ones...no mint candy canes here due to allergies.

I forgot about candy canes! Those are on ours too, but no one can eat them until Christmas day. Which means I throw most of them away.

alyssa719 · November 2013

We're getting a real tree this year (I always had real ones growing up but since I've always worked/traveled too much, I always used fakes before). My aunt actually commented that it was "okay" last year since we just bought the house, etc... nothing like family pressure.

Anyway, I have ornaments from growing up (one a year), and we still do that, then there are ones from places we've been, and ones that we just liked. We usually do blue lights, but I think I might have bought some white ones last year to switch it. I'm hoping at some point to use the fake "old" tree to do a theme one but not sure where/why since we spend X-Mas at my bro's house.

tourqeyes · November 2013

We have a fiber optic tree that is smaller & will probably go in our bonus room this year. I love watching the colors change on that one!

likeanoldtimemovie · November 2013

tourqeyes said:

We have a fiber optic tree that is smaller & will probably go in our bonus room this year. I love watching the colors change on that one!

I want one of those! I have a fiber optic snowman that changes colors and he is my favorite. He was in the kids' room last Christmas when they were sharing.

mbRN83 · November 2013

tourqeyes said:

We have a fiber optic tree that is smaller & will probably go in our bonus room this year. I love watching the colors change on that one!

I had one of those in college for my dorm room. They're awesome!

mcvgal · November 2013

Ours is fake, white lights, blue and purple decorations with a star on top. There are a few extra ornaments we've added over the years that don't match the blue and purple spheres but I love them anyway.

pinklillies610 · November 2013

Ours is a fake 8ft. It has white lights My ornaments are mostly the balls which are brown and gold with a few touches of red and green. I put "frosted" berries and twigs throughout and the gold red and green glittery stick things that stick out. I like simple. And that's mostly just an excuse because I don't have the touch for those big bows and big decorations.

ashesandpearls · November 2013

Real tree with white lights. Silver, gold and red glass balls and a few star shaped ornaments (I am collecting them, but last year I could not find any to add to my collection!), and animal ornaments (another collection I have started, either for this tree or the other one).
Fake tree with colored lights and family ornaments.

likeanoldtimemovie · November 2013

ashesandpearls said:

Real tree with white lights. Silver, gold and red glass balls and a few star shaped ornaments (I am collecting them, but last year I could not find any to add to my collection!), and animal ornaments (another collection I have started, either for this tree or the other one). Fake tree with colored lights and family ornaments.

My mom also collects animal ornaments, but more of a "woodland" theme. JCPenney had some gorgeous ones last year. She has little antlers, hedgehogs, squirrels, etc. They're all made of wood or "natural" looking materials and it's gorgeous. She keeps that one by the piano.

jnnfrrose6 · November 2013

likeanoldtimemovie said:

Oh! Does anyone put small, fake trees in your kids' rooms? Both of ours want one in their room and we let them pick out the mini ornaments, tree skirt and star toppers from Wal*Mart. Growing up, we had sacks at the end of our bed that Santa put a few gifts in so we would know he was there and the rest would be under the tree. We're thinking of putting some small ones under our kids' mini Christmas trees in their room now and the rest out under the big tree.

Our seven-year-old DD picked pink and white zebra ornaments because of course she did.

We did this growing up. My parents have an abundance of ornaments, so my brother and I got to pick some out we wanted on our trees and then mom put some of her...less preferred...ornaments on them too. They're only about 3 feet high fake trees, so she just unplugs them every year and puts a trash bag or blanket over it and stores them. No redecorating every year for these.

tealowl · November 2013

I have a fake white tree I bought 6 or 7 years ago at Dollar General. I love it. It looks amazing next to my turquoise walls.

I have colored lights because its the only strand I have that's white wire. Otherwise I'd like pink or blue lights.

Most of the ornaments are vintage ones that I've found or got passed down to me. I have a few of DD's Xmas art she made when she was little that I hang on it too.

katnipeverclean · November 2013

We go cut ours down with DD and have breakfast with santa the Saturday after Thanksgiving! So it's real and it totally colored lights and a hodge podge or ornaments from over the years.

True Story: In January 2010 when we had been married about six months a pipe froze and burst in our house and flooded the whole thing. It was a giant mess and huge insurance claim. I had the pumber save the peice of copper pipe that burst and we dated it and threaded ribbon through it and it is now a Christmas ornament. Weird, but a reminder of our first major event as a married couple!

jnnfrrose6 · November 2013

likeanoldtimemovie said:

jnnfrrose6 said:

Real tree. I grew up going out and cutting down our own tree. Tried to do that with the hubs for our first Christmas not in NYC. It was a spectacular failure. Maybe we can try again now that we have a kid? Colored lights and ALL.THE.ORNAMENTS. At some point, I'll get a "grown up" tree too and do white lights and a theme (my mother has an angel tree that's beautiful to go along with her family tree of everything). I'm also thinking about getting a small fake tree for our dining room and doing the 12 days of Christmas now that I've got room for it in a house.

Looove the 12 Days of Christmas tree idea. I might steal this.

Go for it! It's harder to find the ornaments than you'd think (at least in a style that I like), plus you have to decide, 1 ornament to represent the whole verse, or one for each thing mentioned. I really want to get 12 days of Christmas plates to use during the holidays too, but so far I can only find dessert plates. Boo.

likeanoldtimemovie · November 2013

jnnfrrose6 said:

likeanoldtimemovie said:

jnnfrrose6 said:

Real tree. I grew up going out and cutting down our own tree. Tried to do that with the hubs for our first Christmas not in NYC. It was a spectacular failure. Maybe we can try again now that we have a kid? Colored lights and ALL.THE.ORNAMENTS. At some point, I'll get a "grown up" tree too and do white lights and a theme (my mother has an angel tree that's beautiful to go along with her family tree of everything). I'm also thinking about getting a small fake tree for our dining room and doing the 12 days of Christmas now that I've got room for it in a house.

Looove the 12 Days of Christmas tree idea. I might steal this.

Go for it! It's harder to find the ornaments than you'd think (at least in a style that I like), plus you have to decide, 1 ornament to represent the whole verse, or one for each thing mentioned. I really want to get 12 days of Christmas plates to use during the holidays too, but so far I can only find dessert plates. Boo.

I have a friend who has 12 Days of Christmas wine glasses! They are so gorgeous.

Alibabs · November 2013

What is the "12 days of Christmas" idea?

My tree is a 7 foot FAKE tree that my parents bought us as a house warming gift 9 years ago. It is truly perfect. I used to have it all sophisticated with white lights but the kids prefer coloured, so for the last 3 years we do that. I love the really slow twinkle effect on it. I have been collecting Christmas decorations over the years for the tree. Our angel is handmade by my DH when we lived in Australia about 10 years ago.

The only thing that interferes with our tree is the Elf on the Shelf...He's a real stinker and likes to make a mess

Everyone else is banned from touching it, but you just can't stop that Elf!

jnnfrrose6 · November 2013

Alibabs said:

What is the "12 days of Christmas" idea?

My tree is a 7 foot FAKE tree that my parents bought us as a house warming gift 9 years ago. It is truly perfect. I used to have it all sophisticated with white lights but the kids prefer coloured, so for the last 3 years we do that. I love the really slow twinkle effect on it. I have been collecting Christmas decorations over the years for the tree. Our angel is handmade by my DH when we lived in Australia about 10 years ago.

The only thing that interferes with our tree is the Elf on the Shelf...He's a real stinker and likes to make a mess
Everyone else is banned from touching it, but you just can't stop that Elf!

I'm thinking about getting a small fake tree for our dining room and decorating it with 12 days of Christmas themed ornaments. I'm a sucker for the 12 days of Christmas. Last Christmas my grandmother gave me a vintage holiday tile (or coaster, I'm not really sure) set of the 12 days of Christmas that belonged to her mother. I can't wait to get it out this year!

perkypicklepants · November 2013

Fake, twinkling lights, multi colored, a mix of ornaments. I have homemade ones from when I was young, to ornaments my DH and I have collected. I love my tree!

cakebatter27 · November 2013

Fake because DH is allergic

White lights only, and the yellowish ones. I hate LED lights.

We have a ton of ornaments. Some that we have collected separately and now some we got together. I'm a sucker for dog ornaments. We also have a Mr. Hanky, the Christmas poo.

LenaLove · November 2013

Ours is fake (allergies) with white lights and silver, white and blue ornaments, with a bit of a snowman theme. I'm thinking of getting a small one for the basement as DD really wants "rainbow" lights and to have "her tree". We'll see if H caves.

shamyfowler · November 2013

Real tree. We try to get up to the mountains to cut one, but mostly from a tree lot!

Sometimes I use clear, sometimes colored lights.

Our tree is a mixture of DH and my ornaments. Growing up, my dad got me an ornament every year, so I have all those. And DH has his when he was little, and some of his parent's. DD has gotten ornaments too. So we have quite the eclectic mixture!

Lottie&Paul · November 2013

We have two trees, one in the family room and one in the dining room. The one in the dining room has all of the breakable ornaments, and the one in the family room has the nonbreakable ones. It's easier that way because we have a toddler. Both are real, with twinkling colored and white lights, and a ton of ornaments. The one in the family room is next to the fireplace where the stockings are hung, and the one in the dining room is next to the train and Christmas village we set up on the table.

Lola825 · November 2013

My Family owns a Christmas Tree Farm, so always real for us. We have white lights, and we mostly use red and silver ornaments. But, I may switch it up this year and add colored ornaments too.

We have a small fake tree in our bathroom too. My parents have a Christmas Tree in every room. The only real one is in their living room, but their Kitchen, Living Room, two bedrooms and bathroom each have one. Their bedroom is massive and has a huge set of windows on the South side so they put three in that window. Its intense, but my mom LOVES the holidays and the decorations stay up until after their birthdays Jan 4th and 6th.

kmawb · November 2013

We have an 8ft fake tree, due to allergies, that goes in the basement family room with wihite lights and the theme alternates every year between my preferred colour scheme of red, ivory and gold and DH's preferred colour scheme of blue, white and silver. We also have some sentimental and handmade ornaments that go on every year from childhood/family heirloom/travels/DD's 1st Christmas/etc.

Last year we got DD her own little fake tree with white lights that goes in our main floor living room (where she usually plays most of the time) and she choose the purple and lime green non-breakable ball ornaments for it and has a few others that were made at daycare etc. I've got some small felt ornaments to make for her tree for this year too.

January Bride · November 2013

I love our tree! It is fake with white lights, but it's a pretty good fake and doesn't look too fake, in my opinion.

We have all silver and red ornaments, with some dark grey thrown in because DH is color blind and couldn't see the red ornaments on the tree. He can see the silver and grey just fine. We have solid colored balls and silver snowflakes and a few silver stars.

The tree is very uniform and plain. We do have a random stuffed Christmas beaver that lives in our tree, though. It was a random stuffed animal thrown in the Christmas ornament box three years ago, and DH thought it was hilarious and insisted that we put it in our tree. So we have a plain classy tree with a big fat beaver in it

Ha ha.

When we have kids, we'll probably get a second tree to hang all the homemade, fun ornaments on, including the ornaments we'll inherit from our childhoods someday.

Lola825 · November 2013

AnotherDreamer said:

mbRN83 said:

Ours is real, colored lights, and different ornaments that we've collected throughout the years. My mom gave me my childhood ornaments when we got married.

It's also TIED WITH FISH LINE TO THE WALL because of my insane cats. We also can't decorate the bottom two feet. I've found ornaments in my bed before from them.

lol, I should probably get on the fish line. My mom gave us the fake tree from when I was a kid when we got married... my fat cat broke it the very same year! Oops.

My parents tree is held up with thick string on either side as well. Not because of cats, but because my mom picks the fattest ugliest tree in their field to "makeover". More often than not, they are too heavy for a stand and need the support.

ARCory · November 2013

We put a 12 foot prelit with white lights in our living room. Silver and gold ornaments. In our basement we put a real tree, white lights, but jewel tone and family ornaments

jackieo1309 · November 2013

mbRN83 said:

It's also TIED WITH FISH LINE TO THE WALL because of my insane cats. We also can't decorate the bottom two feet. I've found ornaments in my bed before from them.

My mom usually ties hers with twine to the wall in 2 different places and the cat still climbs his way to the top and gnaws on the twine or tries to pull it down with his claws.

We always have a real tree and usually go up to CT to cut it down ourselves and have some hot cider when we're done. We use white lights only (the ones that look more yellow than blue) and a variety of ornaments. I love using our childhood ornaments that our parents have sent and ones that we've bought together- I could never do a theme tree!

acciovino · November 2013

Fake with white lights. I am lazy and so ours is pre-lit. All of our ornaments are sentimental.

ksuRN09 · November 2013

We have 2. The big one is fake with colored lights and has a bunch of ornaments DH and I have from childhood and ones I've bought over the years.

The other one is a smaller fake one with white lights. My uncle buys all the neices and nephews a White House ornament every year from the time they're born til they're 18 but he still buys them for me and my sister so I have like 25. So I made a theme tree with those and silver/gold bulbs.

Salsera29 · November 2013

Our is fake, only white non-blinking lights. We have mostly store-bought ornaments including my collection of Lenox ornaments. Clearly, we don't have any kids yet lol. I use silver bows too. I try to make it as much like a department store tree as possible.

slensic · November 2013

Fake (allergies), white lights, no theme. We get a family ornament each year and DD gets an ornament each year, this little bean will too. Then I fill it in with ornaments that I like and have picked up over time.