need advice

cats4sky

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ladies, is it normal to decorate for the holidays by yourself? its me and hubby's 1st xmas and i was very excited to decorate the tree and windows with him. well instead he stayed in the other roon playing video games and i did everything myself. never once even said it came out nice. it hurts. my question is do you decorate for christmas with your family/, im very upset and was trying to make it nice for him.
 

irinasak

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When I was living with my mother, we made the decorating a celebration - family and friends came, we listened to carols and decorate the Christmas tree and the house. Actually, we still do this, but 4 years ago I moved with my bf and on our first Christmas living together I decorated everything myself. I didn't mind, but I got bored and tired. So now I make him help. We don't argue about it, I just told him that I like a decorated house and I appreciate his help because we finish faster and we can both enjoy some relaxing time afterwards. I don't expect him to be all crhrismassy and jolly if he doesn't feel like it.
 

Winchester

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Maybe you need to talk to him, to tell him how you feel about decorating, that it's important to you that you decorate together. Would that help?

Rick and I do the trees together, except for the Tacky White Tree, which is mine alone. He does the outside of the house and I pretty well do the inside. I pretty decorate the kitchen by myself, other than putting things in the space at the ceiling above the kitchen cabinets. We both do the stockings at the railing at the stairs.

The tree in the living room and the tree in the bedroom are decorated by both of us. 
 

kittywhiskers

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I'm a bit of a neat freak so I prefer to decorate myself. Saying that though, my hubby will pass me things and hold things up for me so I suppose he does get involved. My hubby isn't a man that would just come out and say, "oh that looks really nice" or "you've done a great job with the tree" he's more likely to tell me when he doesn't like something I've done, it's just the way he is. I'm sure your hubby appreciates what you have done but never thought to tell you, have you asked him? Some men are just oblivious as to what might hurt our feelings, my hubby is one of them, even when I buy new clothes I have to ask him if he likes them and when I say that he didn't tell me he liked them he says "you never asked" :doh3:,they don't mean it (no offense to any men reading this) the're just wired differently to us ladies.:D
 

AbbysMom

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If it's really important to you then I think you need to talk to him about it. :nod:

I do most of the decorating by myself. When we first got married I think we did decorate the tree together. Now I usually do it while he is home and he helps with things when I ask. He worked from home yesterday so I put it the tree. He will in the same room and helped with the lights around the top because it is much easier with two people. Other than that I did it on my own. We have a lot of ornaments that we picked up over the years while on vacation or to commemorate special occasions. When I would pull out certain ornaments, I would show him and we would talk about it.

I did ask him a few times how it looked and if I needed more ornaments anywhere else. He thinks it looks great even though I did it very quickly and can see bare spots.

When we were first married I figured we would make all decorating decisions together. That lasted only for a few weeks when we had a very heated discussion about curtains in the middle of a store that led to tears and hurt feelings. I make all the decorating decisions now and will ask him his opinion at times. If he absolutely hates something it goes. We will discuss major changes together, like paint color, etc. We are currently in the process of painting the outside of the house. I swear we are on a 5-year plan with that. :lol3: He had very specific ideas on what he wanted for main colors. I would have chosen a few shades different, but it was my turn to defer to him.
 

natalie_ca

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ladies, is it normal to decorate for the holidays by yourself? its me and hubby's 1st xmas and i was very excited to decorate the tree and windows with him. well instead he stayed in the other roon playing video games and i did everything myself. never once even said it came out nice. it hurts. my question is do you decorate for christmas with your family/, im very upset and was trying to make it nice for him.
No need to be upset. Not everyone is into holiday decorating. I know I absolutely hate it so I don't bother.

You like to decorate for the holidays because you like it to be festive and pretty for you to look at.  Regardless of whether you were with your husband this year or not, you likely would have still decorated.  So decorate for yourself because it makes YOU happy.

I live alone and don't bother to decorate because what goes up has to come back down and be put away.  Even if I were with someone I wouldn't decorate.  However, if they wanted to decorate I wouldn't stop them, but I sure wouldn't be helping them either ;)
 

furmonster mom

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Hah! 

Hubby and I are both gamers, so I understand getting sidetracked on that front. 

That being said, I'm a firm believer in balancing game time with work and personal/social time (in other words, time to put the game away for a bit).

So, I am usually the one instigating the decorating, card signing, present wrapping, and all that stuff.  Seems like guys just don't think of these things the same way. 

I usually have to say something along the lines of, "Hey, you think we should put up the village this year, or just stick with the swag?"...  or... "Are you planning on putting lights on the house this year? you know I don't do heights".  That gives him the opportunity to feel useful and included.
 

jcat

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My husband (of 34 years) used to help by bringing in the potted tree and putting the string of lights on it, but that was the extent of his "decorating", which is something he finds unnecessary. Our last cat was horrible with Christmas trees, and my husband refused to put up lights that were going to be destroyed the first day.

Now we have an artificial tree we use individual "wireless candles" on, which I can manage myself. We don't have much in the way of other decorations owing to Mogli's habit of chewing.
 

denice

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I think it's something you should talk with him about.  Since this is your first Christmas it's kind of a get to know each other thing about holidays.  My ex would decorate when the kids were little but then he kind of faded out on the whole thing.  Everyone is different about decorating for the holidays.
 

swampwitch

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It sounds like it would have been helpful to talk to him ahead of time about when you'd like to put up the holiday decorations, and ask how he feels about decorating. Not everybody is into it… there can be many different reasons the season is difficult for someone. If you want to make it festive for the both of you, that's great and you should have fun with it, but be careful when assuming that someone else feels the same way you do. Definitely don't take it personally if he's not into decorating.

Discuss with him some new holiday traditions the two of you can start together, see what he wants to do (and things he doesn't like). Holiday movies and songs, parties, ice skating, baking… there are lots of things you can do to celebrate the season that aren't decorating.  

Since he didn't help put out the decorations, maybe he can help with putting them away after the holidays. Hopefully, you have talked to him by now. 
 
 
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