Anyone NOT putting up a tree or decorations?

[ciyates]

Every year I drive everyone in the house crazy put up decorations/taking down decorations. I want them up by Thanksgiving weekend and down on New Year's day. This year I am tired. I don't want to do it. It isn't joyful. It is a lot of work to lug all of the boxes up and down stairs, string the lights and keep the cat off the tree. So I am letting them do it if they want. I will help if they want but I am not going out of my way to do it. I feel guilty and liberated at the same time! :D:D:D:D

 

I may change my mind but for now I am continued to have Christmas with out an tree/lights/manager/decorations!

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

I'm in a financial worries funk right now, so I don't feel too Christmas-y, and don't feel like dragging all the stuff upstairs, either. But, I know the kids are going to guilt me into it. They already asked if we could put up the tree on Thanksgiving Day. I'm working at a craft fair this weekend, so I told them that next weekend after our Cub Scout event, we could start the decorating. I hope I get in a better mood by then.

[kolamum]

I am.. BUT.. I've always put the decoration "things" in specific days of our homemade advent calendar. I have one that hangs on the walls and each day the kids pluck something out of it. Traditionally it'll tell them when it's time to lug out the tree and decorate it {much excitement}, when to decorate bedroom doors {we love putting to and from tags on them}, when to hang up lights, when to put up the nativities, etc.

 

Nothing is done all at once. We all do different things and it keeps it very fun. :D

[bettyandbob]

I'm not. Do it every year on Black Friday. However, due to general construction clutter every where I'm not. Dh is in charge of the project causing the clutter. This is the second holiday season with this mess. I put up decorations last year. The mess is bigger this year. I don't even want to be in the house anymore (I have a hard time with large amounts of clutter) dd has already asked about the tree a few times.

[Chris in VA]

Well, not YET. :D

 

We don't decorate until closer to the day, in order to focus more on Advent and preparations. I know, decorations are some people's prep! LOL We do hang up a December calendar with felt ornaments on a felt tree (it's a banner), mostly because my mom made it. We also have the Advent wreath on our table, to be lit each night starting this Sunday. But that's it until about a week before Christmas. (Ok, sometimes 2 weeks...) The baby Jesus figure stays out of the creche until Christmas Eve, tho.

[shanvan]

Every year I drive everyone in the house crazy put up decorations/taking down decorations. I want them up by Thanksgiving weekend and down on New Year's day. This year I am tired. I don't want to do it. It isn't joyful. It is a lot of work to lug all of the boxes up and down stairs, string the lights and keep the cat off the tree. So I am letting them do it if they want. I will help if they want but I am not going out of my way to do it. I feel guilty and liberated at the same time! :D:D:D:D

 

I may change my mind but for now I am continued to have Christmas with out an tree/lights/manager/decorations!

 

I haven't put up a tree in 3 years because the bolded above is how we all started to feel. We are much busier now than when the kids were little and since no one was enjoying it and it added extra stress, I stopped putting up a tree and outdoor decorations. I still decorate our mantle and piano with greens and lights, but stopped doing the stair rail. I'm also dealing with an illness that limits my functioning at times, so I really have to think about how I want to spend my time. For our family, it is not decorating a tree. There was some guilt at first, but now I just accept that this is how we do things.

 

I'm not as enamored of Christmas as I once was anyway. With our house bursting at the seams with stuff, the last thing I want to do is drag out more stuff to strew around. What I really want to do is declutter and deep clean. At times decorations look like junk to me now. Ditto for many of the 'gifts' I see in stores this time of year. I sometimes see Christmas as a huge time waster and a distraction from the things that are truly important, but that may be b/c extended family puts so much emphasis on buying things instead of building relationships.

[Mirna05]

Me! I have not put a tree in maybe 5 years just some decorations.

[Night Elf]

My Christmas decorations are limited to one room only. Besides the tree (artificial), we have maybe half a dozen things we put around the room. We do not decorate outside at all. Putting up and taking down is very easy. My house is Christmas free on the 26th. It takes me less than an hour to put it all away.

[RoughCollie]

The kids and I had a Christmas meeting yesterday. I always do everything to get ready, and this year, we are each going to do 1/5 of it. If the kids don't cooperate, it won't get done, period.

 

Turns out everything I do is Important to the kids ... we'll see just how important!

 

We are decorating the mantel only, and putting the dog's ex-pen around the tree. This is because of the puppy, who will happily get into everything. No tinsel this year ... the kids don't care, but I like it - not enough to incur high vet bills when Aidan invariably eats it, though.

 

We will have to put the Advent candles and wreath away when we are not using it so Aidan doesn't eat the candles. A tablecloth has been on the dining table for 3 days now, and he hasn't pulled it off, so maybe he won't think of that and I can use my Christmas tablecloth.

 

Aidan is our Soft Coated Wheaten Terror puppy whose brain is always working on the next spot of mischief. Not a typo. He has already proved that Christmas decorations are a whole new world of terrier fun when he tried to get the decorations off the wreath and eyed a box of ornaments (balls) with a gleeful expression.

 

Frankly, I am tired of Christmas. It was a lot of fun when the kids still believed in Santa, still played with toys, and enjoyed the crafts, baking, and other activities, and when we did not live here.

Edited November 26, 2011 by RoughCollie

[Amy in NH]

I'm in a financial worries funk right now, so I don't feel too Christmas-y

 

:grouphug: You and me both. Even if we can afford a tree before Christmas, we really can't afford to put anything under it right now. I hate Christmas.

 

And we have to drag our stuff in from the barn. Through the snow. Ugh.

[love2read]

We "keep" the advent season, so until the 23rd nothing goes up except a nativity scene with Mary and Joseph slowing moving across the room to the manger, which stays empty until the morning of the 25th. We then celebrate Christmas until the Epiphany on the 6th, with almost two weeks of feasting. The tree and decorations come down the last evening.

[Munchkins_mama]

I'm feeling Bah-Humbug ish this year too. The whole family is over stressed, over-tired, over-cluttered. The Christmas decor only symbolizes that there are more presents to come and more gimme gimme. :glare: I'm sick of it.

 

This year we got new couches and between them and the bookshelves, there is no room for the tree! The kids were feeling very unhappy about no tree, so I bought a 2ft tall tree and one small box of ornaments. It is sitting on a big speaker next to the entertainment center and everyone seems happy with that.

[Rosie_0801]

There won't be any decorations on a tree unless I can find a decent sized tree in a pot. Mabel has moved on. :001_huh:

 

(Mabel was a headless shop dummy who used to wear Christmas decorations hanging off her chainmail.)

 

Rosie

[KungFuPanda]

Every year I drive everyone in the house crazy put up decorations/taking down decorations. I want them up by Thanksgiving weekend and down on New Year's day. This year I am tired. I don't want to do it. It isn't joyful. It is a lot of work to lug all of the boxes up and down stairs, string the lights and keep the cat off the tree. So I am letting them do it if they want. I will help if they want but I am not going out of my way to do it. I feel guilty and liberated at the same time! :D:D:D:D

 

I may change my mind but for now I am continued to have Christmas with out an tree/lights/manager/decorations!

 

I did that last year. Turns out that I was the only one who really cared about decorating the house. I ended up with an advent wreath and a pre lit tree with no decorations. I put it up and plugged it it and everyone else declared it 'good enough.'

 

They like the season well enough, but to them, using the Christmas mugs IS decorating and they're not motivated to do more. My family is ridiculously practical.:glare: Now, if I suggested not baking cookies I would have been called a grinch.

[Georgiana Daniels]

We never put them up because we simply don't have the room. It ends up looking like clutter, and I hate clutter. That said, we help my parents decorate their house, and that doesn't feel the same either.

[Holly IN]

We are not putting the tree up this year. Way too stressful. A light bulb moment came on earlier this week. The kids told my hubby/their dad to make sure there are enough wine for me in order for them to have fun decorating the house and putting tree up. hhhmmmm something wrong there!! So in order to reduce my stress for this year and save my sanity we will not do a tree but will decorate the fireplace with the village houses (I didn't do this for the past 4 years as the tree was the most stressful). We will be buying a tree after Christmas on clearance that is pre-lit and in three sections only. That is it then all we have to worry about next year are the ornaments!!

 

It is not enjoyable to get stressed over the tree. So no tree for this year...:D This is not due to religious reasons at all. Just to save my sanity and make this Christmas less stressful for me.

 

Holly

[Tarreymere]

I imagine the kids will dig the tree out and put it up some time before Christmas, I'm ignoring it as I usually do. Most years the tree makes it up at least a week before. I like the pretty lights. We don't do any other decorating. I think Christmas decorations are pretty, but we don't do them in our own home since I won't spend money on them.

I like to bake cookies so we will be doing a lot of that during the week before also. We don't go gift crazy, just a couple wii games for the whole family and a few small inexpensive things for the younger two kids. I get bubble bath. We'll spend the holidays eating too many cookies and playing wii, which is exactly how we like it.