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Describe your Christmas tree. Do you use white lights? Color lights? Do they blink? Have a theme? Have all the same type of ornaments? Have sentimental ornaments collected over the years? If artificial, is it green or a different color like silver? How tall is it?

 

I have a 7.5 ft. artificial green tree. We use color lights but not blinking which drives me crazy. We have an assortment of ornaments collected from the beginning of our marriage 19 years ago. The coolest ones are the handmade ones. We even have one that DH made when he was a Cub Scout. But as we were putting up our tree, I told the kids I thought we should buy new ornaments because our tree is looking tired to me. No one liked that idea. They like the tree just as it is. Dd said it wouldn't be tradition if we didn't use the same ornaments every year.

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We have a 14 ft artificial tree in our living room displaying all the ornaments we have collects since we were married (baby's first Christmas, numerous pet ornaments, etc.). That one is a beast. Dh isn't as thrilled to put it up as he was ten years ago when we got it. :-) But....I love it. Ă°Å¸ËœÅ 

 

We also have a live tree we cut ourselves in our family room. This one displays all of the handmade ornaments from the kiddos. It's starting to get quite crowded....

 

Both have simple white lights...no blinking. We save the colorful lights for outdoors.

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Artificial 5 foot tree in the living room, white lights, ornaments that I've made or the kids have made over the years, a few keepsake ornaments that have been given to us.  

In the dining room we have an artificial 4 foot tree with multi color lights and the same type of ornaments.

I love my trees.

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I like to keep our tree up for at least a month so we cut down our own tree at a tree farm.

 

We use multicolored lights that don't blink.

 

We give our kids an ornament every year so those and other ornaments we collect over the years go on the tree. Lots of animals accidentally. I have a couple childhood ornaments but not ones I made...that's neat that you still have your dh's cub scout project!

 

Our tree topper and garland change every few years. Currently it is a star and felt chain.

 

The tree is one of my favorite traditions!

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Our tree is about 6 1/2 feet, since we bent the top branch down to hold the star better. Always artificial, but standard green. It has 1,100 colored lights, which I lovingly strung myself, but they don't blink because I would go crazy if they did. No theme for the ornaments...just all the ones we've collected over the years. Each child receives a new one every year, and we tend to look for ornaments at special places we visit, too, so there are quite a few of those. We have lots of ornaments! Oh, and a snowman tree skirt underneath, which we've had since our first Christmas after we got married.  :wub:

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We have a real tree that we cut ourselves and bought at the local tree farm that we have bought our trees from since we were carrying the boys on our backs. 

It's tall enough that our tree-topper wouldn't fit this year and I wired on a star with twist-ties.

It has colored lights, a lighted ribbon, and ornaments of various types-mostly ones I don't like a lot, but the boys like to decorate with them, and they like the ornaments. I like the candy canes we put over it at the end. It has a plaid cloth tree skirt, and Christmas presents wrapped in the same paper, because it was what I had left from last year and I wasn't buying any more. Except for two presents for me--the boys used old boxes taped and tied with leftover ribbon for the pictures they drew for me. :D

Hallmark or House-Be-Fancy Christmas tree it is surely not.

I love it.

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We have a 6ft pre-lit artificial tree.  (severe allergies to all things green in our house).  Dh built a wooden box for it to stand on that makes it reach almost 8ft. with a star on top.  I like it up like that so we have plenty of room for gifts underneath.  Our lights (the ones that are still working) are white, and our ornaments are a huge mishmash of all the ones the kids have picked out over the years.  

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Real tree

Multicolored, non-blinking lights

Mostly sentimental ornaments --  Ones the boys made when they were little and ones that MIL has given us over the years (many of those are hand made).  We fill in with candy canes and small red and gold bows.

Gold star on top

Red tree skirt that the pets love to re-arrange and lay on/under

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We have two 4 ft artificial green trees---one for Winter Solstice, one for Christmas. They sit on small tables flanking the fireplace.

Solstice tree: nonblinking white lights, clear multipoint star on top, nature- and solar-themed ornaments

Christmas tree: nonblinking multicolored lights, rustic/foresty Santa on top, accumulated sentimental ornaments (including a little blue plastic snowflake that hung on my grandmother's tree, a starched crocheted medallion that looks a bit like a snowflake that my mother cut from a falling-apart tablecloth my great-grandmother crocheted, and a few ornaments that hung on my mother's tree). Playmobil Santa and sleigh with reindeer underneath

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We might not put up a tree this year. I've allowed the girls to put up their scavenged tree, though. Every year they try to put it out in, like, March and every year I go "Ugh, guys, you do recall that you got that monstrosity from somebody else's garbage, right?"

It's pink, of all things, and it has lights attached, and oh I cannot stand it. But it makes them happy, so sometime around September I acquiesce.

 

When we do put up a tree it's "random ornaments, colored lights, no blinking". I can't stand white lights. They just seem so... dead.

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We have small children, and it shows. 

We upgraded this year from a super cheap 4ft, white, artificial tree to a 6 ft, super cheap, prelit, green artificial tree. It has white lights and looks exactly like we paid $25 for it  :lol:

 

We let the kids decorate it with a mixture of very special, delicate ceramic, glass, silver and gold ornaments that we have collected over the years (mostly before kids), homemade ornaments made by the kids, Paper mache, decoupaged ball ornaments that I bought our first year together to fill up our empty tree, and carefully hand-painted, wood burned ornaments that my mother made the year I was born, and handed down to me before she died.

 

I assigned each of the older three kids a zone of the tree, 3 yo and 5yo on the bottom, 8yo in the middle, 12 yo on the top. The most delicate ornaments are on top, the gaudy, shiny, Mardi Gras beads and borax crystals in the middle, the cute, handpainted wood ones on the bottom. Their choice. 

It's an awful mismatched, uneven mess, with big gaps in the branches and clumps of ornaments and bare patches. I love it.  :001_wub:

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We have a real tree, with the large-size multicolored lights- no blinking!  Aside from some basic bulbs, pretty much everything on there has sentimental value or meaning.  Lots of ornaments DH and I made when we were kids, and our own kids' as well.  Mementos from trips, ornaments that were passed down, and... many sci-fi themed ones (e.g. Boba Fett, an Enterprise, Tardis etc ) because we are big nerds. 

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It's still in the box in the basement.  Probably won't put it up until Saturday, when dd gets home from school. 

 

 

We used to have lots of kid-made and kid-chosen ornaments but as the kids turned into adults our tree changed.  Now every year we go to the Christkindlmarket in Chicago and we each pick out an ornament made in Germany to add to our collection (this year's choices are on the dining room table waiting for the tree!). We have some other special ornaments, mostly handmade by family or craftsmen.   Our tree is much more fragile  than it was when we had little kids...and we love that. Except now we  have four young grandchildren and if they visit during the holidays I'm probably going to just have to really focus on the fact that my lovely, fragile ornaments are just things and things are not as important as people. 

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An artificial 6.5 ft tree with white lights, ornaments are a variety. The girls have a little 1 ft purple tree in their room with purple lights and various ornaments. We do need a new tree though. We traded trees with dmil last year, only about half of the lights work on the one we got. I put the non working lights in the back for now

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We have a 7+ foot Virginia Pine decked with multi colored (non-LED) lights, gold tinsely garland, and both homemade and gifted ornaments. The bottom 18 inches is bare on account of the baby.

 

I've been on a search for the perfect star topper for many years, so there's nothing on top. Also no tree skirt, so lots of sap on our laminate wood floor. :/

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I love our tree. It's about 8-9 feet, artificial and pre-lit. I've had artificial trees my entire life....I'd never get a real one. And pre-lit is a God-send because I despise wrapping lights round and round the tree.

 

Our tree is filled with memories. Each year as I grew up, I got one ornament....when I moved out I got to take them with me to begin my own tree. There's memories of my childhood in those ornaments. I do the same for my own kids. I can tell that as a toddler, my middle DD was into princesses because we have several years of Merida, etc. I can tell that my oldest has always been a tomboy due to her choices of soccer ball ornaments and race cars. I see the year that oldest DD learned to read because we have an ornament of Curious George reading a book. I see my middles short year of ballet because of the ballet shoes ornament.

 

Our now-deceased 14 year old dog that we put to sleep this past April still exists in the memories on our tree....he has several dog themed ornaments over the years. Our current new pup has a photo frame ornament - his first! We remember the two cats we used to have by their personalized cat-themed ornaments. We occasionally pick up ornaments from vacations taken.

 

Dates and years are carefully written in each one.

 

There's the computer ornament to represent that DH and I met online.

 

We love pulling out each ornament and remembering why it's there!

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"Our" tree is across the street at my moms.  We don't really have room for one (we have cat trees in all the available spaces) at our house.  The tree at my mom's is a small artificial tree but my DD7 decorated it herself with pink, purple, and Disney ornaments and pinkish lights and tinsel.  Its very pink.

 

Stefanie

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Describe your Christmas tree. Do you use white lights? Color lights? Do they blink? Have a theme? Have all the same type of ornaments? Have sentimental ornaments collected over the years? If artificial, is it green or a different color like silver? How tall is it?

 

I have a 7.5 ft. artificial green tree. We use color lights but not blinking which drives me crazy. We have an assortment of ornaments collected from the beginning of our marriage 19 years ago. The coolest ones are the handmade ones. We even have one that DH made when he was a Cub Scout. But as we were putting up our tree, I told the kids I thought we should buy new ornaments because our tree is looking tired to me. No one liked that idea. They like the tree just as it is. Dd said it wouldn't be tradition if we didn't use the same ornaments every year.

 

We use white lights. No blinking. Please.

 

About, oh, 12 or 13 years ago, I thought it would be fun to have a theme. My family doesn't do such a thing. None of my friends did themes. But in a moment of inspiration I thought to myself, "Hey! I could have a theme! I think I'll do...12 Days of Christmas!"

 

As if no one else in the entire known world had ever done 12 Days of Christmas as a theme. :lol:

 

So I started collecting all sorts of random 12 Days of Christmas things: Dept. 56, House of Hatton, miscellaneous tree ornament series, a throw for the sofa, a cookbook, some tins, a Jim Shore Santa with the 12 days on it, and ornaments that I picked up over the years that sort of seem like 12 Days of Christmas to me (as in the two cow ornaments, one from Williamsburg, one from Kitty Hawk, because there just aren't very many ornaments that are actually maids milking, KWIM?). Oh, and a very kewl little teapot that has the 12 Days depicted on it, and two puzzles that we put together but haven't yet figured out how to actually display anywhere. :huh:

 

I have a couple of Boyds' Bears Nativity scenes, plus a few other Nativities, plus a Dept. 56 Dickens Village (including all 12 Days of Christmas figures).

 

We used an artificial tree for many years, because it *just fit* in a niche in our house in San Jose; we put up a real tree for a few years, but when Mr. Ellie was laid off, we decided that hey, that artificial tree looked just fine. :-)

 

When my dds moved out, I gave them the ornaments that were theirs, so all of the ornaments I have now are *mine.* :-)

 

In addition to the 12 Days ornaments, I have several that we bought at Disneyland, and a little Adirondack chair that I bought on Ocracoke when I visited there one year, and a few ornaments that people have given me over the years. The rest of the ornaments are basic Christmas ornaments I bought to fill in. In fact, I was looking at the tree this morning and thinking it could use more, so I'm checking out Hobby Lobby today.

 

Oh, and we mustn't forget the big 50th Anniversary Disneyland train that Mr. Ellie sets up under the tree each year, or the Mickey Mouse door-hanger, or the 12 Days of Christmas wreath on the front door. Actually, by the time I finish putting up everything, my house looks like an explosion in a Christmas factory. :lol:

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6 foot, pre-lit artificial tree.  Green tree, white lights, non-blinking. 

 

We have an assortment of ornaments Ă¢â‚¬â€œ we started out with crocheted snowflakes and angels that my grandmother made, ceramic birds that I bought with a wedding gift card, and red balls to contrast all the white.  Over the years we added photo and other keepsake ornaments and lots of child-made ornaments.   New additions this year are two cardinals, a St. Nicholas, and tri-bead/pipe cleaner candy canes. 

 

We use an old bed sheet as a tree skirt.  I started making a tree skirt when I was pregnant with ds1.  I have yet to finish it. 

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seven foot tall fake fir tree with white lights, about half erratically twinkle.  Ornaments very eclectic, from Hallmark stuff from grandparents to the kids to Darth Vadar and Homer Simpson to tiny bird nests and pine cones (all fake) etc. etc.  

 

I'd rather have a tree with the larger colored lights and tinsel of my childhood, but hubby grew up with "Italian" lights, and the cats would eat the tinsel.

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We have a live tree -- always live! -- about 7 feet tall. I would like a taller one but we have low ceilings. :(

 

This year I went with a mix of small white and larger (NOT blinking!) colored lights, and the effect is AMAZING! I don't know why I never thought of this before. We have an assortment of ornaments we've collected over the years -- some the kids have made, some from my childhood, and the set dh and I bought the first year we were married, when we spent a grand total of $100 on decorations and thought we'd broken the bank! This year I've added some of my post-Christmas finds from last year. My favorites are the giant red and green (non-working) light bulbs and some Dr. Seuss-looking floral picks.

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Live tree, zillions of colored lights, no blinking. A hodge-podge of ornamets, from handcrafted wooden puppets I got long ago in Germany to the garish (but apparently beloved) Hallmark ornaments my DH can't resist at the after-Christmas sales. And tall - we have a 14-foot ceiling and a 12-foot tree.

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We alternate between a 6 ft artificial tree and a small tree. This year we put up the small, tabletop tree that belonged to my husband's grandmother. My children loved Great Grandma Jane. She passed away a few years ago. The tree has white, non-blinking lights and a variety of small ornaments. Some are quite old. It is nice to have GG's little tree up. It feels as though we still have a little piece of her with us. My living room is small and right now this tree is perfect for the space.

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Right now our tree is a naked, ~7 foot Douglas Fir.  We got it yesterday, but when we got home we discovered we needed a new stand, and by the time we found a store that had one it was too late to decorate.  But the kids had fun going to the tree farm. They got to pick the tree, help cut it down, and carry it.  They also got free hot chocolate.

 

When it is decorated it will have white and blue lights.  The ornaments are ones we have collected over the years.  We have some from our childhood too which are very special.  I also buy the kids ornaments every year so we have more and more each year, but they will get to take them with them when they move out if they want.  We don't do tinsel or garland or anything like that. 

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It's a 24" artificial tree that is generously lit by a single strand of white lights. I let DS pick the ornaments to use and put them where he pleased, and it looks it :) . Every year, I make a new star out of white cardstock.

The tree is on a table in the living room; it shares the table with our nativity scene, which is a rustic little stable with only animals so far. Occasionally DS will bring the little donkey over to admire an ornament.

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We bought our first real tree this year. It's small and perfectly proportioned--and it smells great. I think DH will be very glad to get rid of the dusty fake tree we've tried the past few years. We use tiny LED lights that I find warmer and lovelier than other LEDs we've tried. Some have an odd flicker that makes me nauseous, and the light can seem so cold. But I love these--I just wish I could remember what they are so I can order more!

 

Our ornaments are mostly wooden and straw, plus DS's nutcracker ollection. I have a really pretty straw garland that drapes around--I bought it years ago and it's really fragile, but I've never seen anything like it again. I am drawn to Scandianavian simplicity especially at the holidays, and our holiday decor definitely reflects that.

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7 foot(ish) fake tree, prelit. White lights, no blinking.

Silver garland. All ornaments are white, silver, gold, or glass/crystal.

It's very, very sparkly and I love it. A lot of the ornaments were bought the first year I was married, and I've stuck with the theme as I've bought more over the years.

 

*I don't love that half my lights went out this year. I'm stripping the prelit strands off when I take the tree down. :(

 

My kids have their own tree (4ft, down by their bedrooms). On it goes all the colorful, kiddie ornaments; the homemade, craftsy stuff goes there, too. :p. It is how I keep everyone happy: my tree stays pretty, the way I want it, and the kids get their own space to decorate now they want.

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We have a real 11ish foot tree in a room with a vaulted, planked ceiling. We cut our own. Lots of white lights, burlap ribbon around it, rustic viney looking star (our family room is kind of rustic...big brick fireplace that extends to the vaulted ceiling, planked ceiling).  We have gold and red ornaments tying all of the other mish mash together (childhood ornaments, things my kids have made, ornaments that belong to each of the kids)..  2nd small tree (fake) in DR with white lights, burlap ribbon, and beeswax ornaments.

 

This year each kid also has a tree in their room.  Target had small fake trees (5ish feet?) for $15.  I had just paid that for one of those tiny little mini trees earlier in the season.  Each kid bought some ornaments from the Dollar Spot (we gave them a budget).  They LOVE having their own trees.  I love the holidays, and I like that they are excited to have their own, even if it is a little over the top that we now have 5 trees.

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We have a pretty small tree this year, it's about 5', noble fir. It's our first time doing live in about 8 years. I bought new lights for it because my old artificial tree was prelit, and it turns out there are now lights that can be white or multicolored. I keep it mostly on white but sometimes we switch it, it's pretty much amazing.

 

I don't do themed trees, ours is decorated with 16 years of ornaments collected from all over the place. I buy a couple new ones every year and the kids usually get personalized ones as well.

 

I have a toddler so the tree looked perfect when we first decorated it but many of the ornaments have since migrated upward.

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9' artificial spruce look. (downsized from an 11' tree.)

 

white lights and candle lights on separate circuits so you can have one or the other or both.

 

ornaments range from radko to preschool craft day to souvenirs of special locations/events to "first" Christmases to family heirlooms. (including some my mother hated, indent glass ornaments with dioramas that came in a box of four bought in the 60's from "value-mart" (like k-mart/walmart/etc.). I had to beg for them.  now, they can be pricey on ebay.) 

 

style runs the gamut.  (I also put plain glass balls on the very inside to reflect the lights.) 

 

dudeling likes candy canes, so I bought a box and started hanging them on the tree. he got upset - he thinks candy canes on the tree look ugly.  (hey kid, you're taking them off the tree to eat them . . . . )  so, I put them in a dish on the buffet.  he was much happier with that . . .

 

topped with a wax headed angel my mother brought back from Germany.

 

we planted some nobles.  when they're big enough, we'll cut them down for Christmas trees.  I miss the smell.

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I used to be a real-tree-only kind of girl. But then after several years of finding needles in July and dragging a dead tree outside and trying to get a live tree home with a little car and making sure there were enough antihistamines and rubber gloves around for me to decorate it without breaking out or passing out.... DH found an amazing artificial tree on sale that I love so very much. The trade off is that now I can put the tree up in November, which he also hates ;)

 

It is 7.5 feet tall and it's an umbrella sort of tree. Anyway, you can't see the "trunk", and it looks full and I love it. For about a million years I had the same multicoloured mini-lights. But for the past two years I've been using the red outdoor LED lights that I can't get my DH to put outside :D

 

Our ornaments are eclectic. A mix of ones kids have made, gifts marking "Baby's First Christmas" and other sentimental ones. I finally bought a new set of coloured balls, though. They're plastic, so they bounce! And the colours are a bit more modern, but still my style.

 

I'm an angel on the tree kind of person, but DH is a star kind of guy. So last year DS8 and I bought a new star that fits on the tree and matches the new ornaments.

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Our tree is just that OURS!!! LOL It has disney character lights that do not blink I hate blinking lights. On it is a mix of ornaments that I made as a child, that my children have made and some that were gifts. I also have ancient ornaments that have been passed down for decades. Some that came from Germany many many years ago when a young girl ran away from her family to marry a poor boy all the way to the USA. I have ornaments that many grandpas ago carved, and ornaments my mom made as a young girl in Catholic boarding school. Every year the stories are told again and again. Some can no longer be hung they are way to fragile now, but we still look at them every single year. My favorite is the star my grandfather made out of spare metal pieces for my moms first tree. The kids love the tree and the stories. 

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We had real trees for several years when the boys were little, but dh was less than thrilled with it and we went through a patch where we were looking for an artificial tree (but it had to be cheap! :laugh: ). We didn't really have a tree for a few years in that transition period because I could never find something I liked for what dh wanted to pay for it. 

 

Then I found a little 3ft fake tree in a planter. With white lights. It was originally a transitional tree, but at this point I think it's ours until I want to fight for a real tree again. Each year I set it on a small table with a white table cloth. Small gifts around it. Large gifts under it. 

 

The only ornaments are made by the boys or given to us. I have a small tray of gold and red balls to fill in the gaps but we don't need too many of those at this point. I love getting out the box and having the boys each put up the ornaments they made as toddlers, preschool, and grade schoolers. My favorites are tiny metal frames with toddler pictures of the boys in them. 

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We went a different direction this year. We have two artificial trees going.

 

One is our "usual" tree--green, white lights, cinnamon salt dough ornaments made from Star Wars cookie cutters, burlap ribbon, topper is a Darth Vader mask.

Our "new" tree is a white 4' one, done in a frozen theme--blue ribbon, white lights, blue poinsettias, silver and blue ornaments, Frozen ornaments, white plastic snowflake topper.

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A real tree. An approximately 7' Noble (my wife's favorite) White non-blinking lights.

 

Mrs Spy Car has the most beautiful ornaments, collected over many decades. This is the first year we've not hung the most sentimental and fragile ornaments, as we have an 8 month old Vizsla pup and don't want to tempt fate.

 

It still looks festive.

 

Bill

 

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We have a 6ft green artificial half tree - white lights (pre-lit) and this year we went with gold stars, red/burgundy and white/cream ornaments, red bead garland, candy canes, and a delicate gold star on top.  (The half-tree is perfect for my NYC apartment).

 

We've always done the sentimental and homemade ornaments through the years, but wanted something different this year.  I love it. 

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An artificial 6 ft tree with non blinking colored lights. The ornaments are a hodgepodge of what I've collected over 29 years of marriage plus everything my mom had collected including ones made by my girls. The tree is loaded, but I view it as a bit of family history.

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White lights. No blink.

 

9.5 ft. (anything shorter than 8 or 9 ft looks silly with our tall ceilings).

 

Skinny.

 

Artificial.

 

Insane amounts of ornaments, no theme.

 

There are particularly a lot of Christmas balls. I have the ones I made when I was first married, half of the ones my mom made when she was first married, and about a quarter of the ones my grandmother made a little before that. Also a lot of supporting balls, like inexpensive copper colored ones. We have a lot of copper things.

 

Lots of crocheted snowflakes.

 

Lots of ornaments to commemorate things, like ornaments from Disney World, little African animals made of soda cans from Zimbabwe, snowflakes from Prague...

 

Lots of things from each year of my kids' lives that they made, like tiny baby handprints from their first Christmas and things from my childhood that I made, like a tiny ceramic painted heart with my picture from Brownies.

 

Ribbon garland.

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9 ft. slim artificial tree (allergies in this house)

Lots of multi-colored lights. One strand does 8 different patterns of blinking (slow fade, twinkly, only the reds, etc.) I love the life it brings to the tree.

This year, when no one was looking, I put an extra set of RED lights on the tree. (Non LED here, too>) The red is making me so happy....fiercely cheerful.

 

Every ornament on our tree has a story or a meaning. We have an ornament from the first year we dated--and at least one every year since. The sons have ornaments from their childhood as well. In years where we travel, we collect ornaments from places we visit. It's fun each year to get the ornaments out and remember. Which means we have ornaments from our visits to Hadrian's Wall or wine country in France, Disney, or the summer beach place? We can't always find 'ornaments' so there are key chains and other what nots that have been made into ornaments. It makes for a colorful and interesting tree.

 

I use a red tartan tablecloth as a tree skirt--it's colorful, easy, and different.

 

No gifts under our tree yet. I either have teddy bears under there or, this year, I have good sized decorative reindeer--white, gold, and silver. Pretty.

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We have two 4 ft artificial green trees---one for Winter Solstice, one for Christmas. They sit on small tables flanking the fireplace.

Solstice tree: nonblinking white lights, clear multipoint star on top, nature- and solar-themed ornaments

Christmas tree: nonblinking multicolored lights, rustic/foresty Santa on top, accumulated sentimental ornaments (including a little blue plastic snowflake that hung on my grandmother's tree, a starched crocheted medallion that looks a bit like a snowflake that my mother cut from a falling-apart tablecloth my great-grandmother crocheted, and a few ornaments that hung on my mother's tree). Playmobil Santa and sleigh with reindeer underneath

Would love to see a pic of your Solstice tree. This is such a great idea.

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We have a 6 ft artificial tree.  (Only 8 ft ceilings.)  White, non-blinking lights.  I'd like to switch to color, but we have lots of strands of white lights that have lasted a long time.  I use strands of beads in red and gold for garland. Most of our ornaments are sentimental ... a few from when dh and I were kids, some that the kids have made, keepsakes from major events and milestones in our family, something from our vacations - whenever we travel, we buy an ornament to commemorate the trip.  Santa usually brings our family an ornament each Christmas - sometimes depicting a favorite movie that year or something the kids were into, or even a private joke. 

 

Every year, we put up the tree around Gaudete Sunday and decorate together... the operative word being "together."  It is fun reminiscing while we unpack the ornaments.  This year, we have been busy so we only got the tree and lights up yesterday.  But we won't have everyone together until much later tonight.  But I wanted the house decorated before book club tomorrow so we may just have to put the ornaments on in a hurry tonight after everyone gets home later this evening. 

 

We typically don't put gifts for our immediate family under the tree before Christmas eve.  Only presents for others.  And they can't be food because we have a dog. 

 

When we first got married and didn't have many ornaments, I just bought a couple of rolls of fat Christmas ribbon and made some lovely bows to put on the tree to give it some color.  Everyone complimented me on those bows.  But, alas, those were destroyed in a flood 18 years ago along with some other family ornaments.  My beautiful, handmade tree skirt was destroyed in the flood, so I have a cheap felt one.  Hmmm ... gift idea for the kids when they move out ... I can make some beautiful tree skirts. 

 

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9ft full tree.  It is old so I have to put the branches on one by one and then string the lights.

colored lights -- lots of them -- must have color

solid lights - not blinking

angel on top -- white gown with gold trim and gold wings

lots of ornaments

no theme

 

I love our tree and it makes me feel relaxed sitting and looking at it.  We put it up around Thanksgiving.  Either the day before or day after.  It comes down New Year's Eve before midnight. 

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We have a 7 foot fake tree that we put colored lights on. We then set the dials so they all twinkle together most of the time. We then have a set of jingle bell-like lights that play music and they light up according to the tune and beat of whatever song is playing. Then at the very bottom we have a string of Disney lights (Mickey/Minnie/Donald/Goofy) that are my favorite to put on, and they just glow. At the very top we have an angel that glows different colors and moves.

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