Question Of The Day, Friday, November 10

[Winchester]

Good morning! And Happy Friday!

I'm on the first day of a three-day weekend due to Veterans' Day. And I'm going to start decorating for Christmas today, just the kitchen, no trees or anything.

So let's talk about your Christmas decorations (and no, it's not too early!): What do you do for decorating and when do you start? Do you put up a tree (real tree or fake)? Do you do any outside decorating? Do your kitties have stockings that are hung by the chimney with care? Or hung someplace else if you don't have a chimney?

I plan to work on just the kitchen today. I'd like to put up the Tacky White Tree in the kitchen, but we don't have a lot of room anymore. Usually the Monday after Thanksgiving is when Rick will work on outside decorations and we put our living room tree up that weekend, too. (We wire the tree to the wall just above the baseboard in the living room; otherwise, wild kitties would be knocking the tree to the ground -- don't laugh -- they've managed to knock a 7-foot tree to the floor.)

Do you decorate for Christmas?

 

[muffy]

No, I live alone and don't decorate.

Muffy

 

[Merlin77]

Hmm, we start around Decemberish, it sort of depends. We put up some Christmas lights, as long as it isn't too cold out! Our tree is always a real tree, with plenty of ornaments, and we even put little toy trains on looping train tracks underneath it. We buy the cats some special food just for the occasion, but no stockings for them! Oh well. I'm sure they don't mind.

 

[foxxycat]

not in a long time. Don't have room in the living room. Don't want to block the tv from my couch. And with Jon's issues we decided to clear out the areas around so he can move around with a cane etc. I wish my living room was bigger..it is open concept but I would get rid of the breakfast eating area in order to have another 5 feet of living room. that's where I would put the tree. the center of the room..but alas we have cabinets and breakfast nook/stools there. Plus the peak ceiling would allow me to bring in a 10 foot tree. I can dream right?!

We have stockings some where but don't fill them anymore. I buy stuff for jon all year long and he's always saying I don't need anything...so we haven't done a tree in years. The last time was 2013. When we got Honeybee. I thought she would climb it or chase Floey around it-all they did was ignore it and Sleep under it. Floey used to drink the water out of the tree stand. or eat the pine needles.

We never had any problems with the tree-just don't put glass stuff on the bottom of tree because angel Flash used to pelt them off every chance she got. Never had the tree tip over..was hoping Honeybee would have so I could have pictures to laugh at in the future...but nope she could care less about the tree.

 

[MeganLLB]

I Try to leave the Fall stuff up through Thanksgiving. I start decorating for Advent at the start of Advent. Which includes my advent wreath, nativities (without baby Jesus in the manger yet), I may put up a Christmas tree and other things, but nothing get's lit up or has ornaments on it. I also am going to get an Advent calendar that has a dog treat in it for every day of Advent counting down towards Christmas.

Before I leave home for Christmas, I turn the lights on the tree, put on the ornaments, and put baby jesus in all the nativities. And put up the last of the "Christmas" decorations.

I listen only to Advent music and secular Christmas music where the songs are preparing for Christmas until actual Christmas day and the start of the Christmas season.

Then during Christmastide I will listen to "Christmas" music, and keep the tree lit, and all the decorations stay up until the Baptism of Jesus which is celebrated in February.

I try to be very intentional about keeping Advent a season of preparation and celebrating Christmas when it is actually Christmas.

 

[EggSandwich]

My family usually starts decorating around December. We have a fake tree that we put up and some other things to go around the house. I'm not sure how it's going to work in the new house, though. We'll see. I'm quite interested to see what Cinnamon thinks of the tree, too, haha. My birthday is also pretty close to Christmas (the 14th) so I guess that could be a good or a bad thing .

 

[Margret]

We used to have an absolutely gorgeous plastic Christmas tree, the same one my parents had when I was a child. From a few feet away it looked totally realistic; all we had to do was put a pine-scented candle in the room (didn't even have to light it!) and everyone thought we had a real tree. That was before the house guests from hell started "cleaning" my house. They left me all the branches, but threw away the trunk. They also threw away the lights, and my box of wrapping paper and ribbon, and I've only found about half of my ornaments.

I've bought a long, 1 inch thick wooden pole, in which I plan to drill holes to turn it into a new trunk; then I want to stain it a darker color (it's very pale now). The big trick is going to be getting the angles right so the branches are closer to vertical near the top. I bought one string of new lights last year, and I think I'll get a second this year just in case that's not enough. With no cat I'd use lots of tinsel, but I don't trust Jasmine not to eat tinsel so plastic icicles. Garland is also problematic around a cat if it's made with bits of tinsel, so we have gold ribbon to use instead, and I may get some beaded garland. And we don't put a star on top; my mother designed and tatted a lace angel (with porcelain head and hands) to be a tree-topper. Fortunately, that survived the depredations of the house guests from hell. The tree goes in the dining room, since it's the spot with the most room, although if I could find the time I might clear all the videotapes out of the conversation pit and put it there so it could be visible from our front windows, but I think that's a project for another year. No outside decorations; we don't have that kind of money.

We have stockings for ourselves, but we don't really use them at this point. Jasmine will probably get a couple of new crinkly balls, and I'll try to buy extra to take to the local shelter. And I won't be putting out a pine-scented candle because at this point Roger is allergic.

Margret

 

[Norachan]

Nope, nada, nothing, zip. zilch.



My family haven't decorated for Christmas since we were old enough to stop believing in Santa.

 

[Kat0121]

Nope- no decorating here. DD doesn't care. It's too much effort for no payoff and hurricane Sophie would just tear everything up during one of her bouts of the zoomies. Plus- what does not get put up does not need to be taken down- which is the worst part.

 

[DreamerRose]

I don't decorate for Christmas either as I live alone. It's probably just as well as the cats would go bananas and tear everything down. Before the cats, I did decorate, and it drove me crazy when I worked because it took a whole weekend to put the tree up, and that made the time so short to shop and bake. I gave up on the outdoor lights, too, after the rabbits chewed the cords and ruined several strings of lights. It looked pretty, though. I had a Christmas-like tree near the front door that I festooned with lights before it snowed. When it did, it was beautiful with the lights glowing through the snow.

 

[jcat]

We do very little in the way of decorating. The Christmas tree goes up some time between the weekend before Christmas and Christmas Eve. Stockings, including Mowgli's, are hung from the china closet. There are a couple of fancy Christmas candles in the living room, but that's about it.

 

[Kat0121]

Nope, nada, nothing, zip. zilch.



My family haven't decorated for Christmas since we were old enough to stop believing in Santa.

Pssst.... Santa is REAL!

 

[Columbine]

We don't do a whole lot for Christmas - just a (real) tree, plus Christmas cards all over the back (foot-deep) windowsill as we receive them. We decorate quite late - dad's birthday is December 3rd, so we don't put anything up until around the middle of the month.

This year though - no tree and no cards. The boys (who are 8 months now) would destroy everything in minutes, and it's too big of a risk. The cards wouldn't cause harm like a tree could, but as they're both determined cardboard shredders they'd get destroyed as fast as they went up

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

no Christmas decorating here. i don't bother to put things up and around, only to have to take them down and put them away again. however, i absolutely love looking at Christmas trees and decorations! i usually do that online.

i always have Christmas music on, starting the day after Thanksgiving and going through New Year's Eve, for my cats and i to enjoy.

my three cats each have a Christmas stocking. they get so very excited when i bring them out to them on Christmas Day, filled with toys!

 

[AbbysMom]

No decorating until after Thanksgiving here. My house is currently a Fall explosion and the Christmas decoration start to go up both inside and outside once those come down. We have a fake tree because of my allergies.

 

[blueyedgirl5946]

I love fall and decorating for that. So I never put any Christmas things out before Thanksgiving. Last year, I was so bogged down with other things. About four days before Christmas I realized I only had a Christmas wreath on the front door. So I hurriedly put out some winter spreads, some with angels, Jesus, etc. pictures. I had some winter, snowy pillows that decorated the sofa. It was wonderful when Christmas was over, nothing to take down. But I am trying to get myself in a better frame of mind this year for the holidays. I have already done much of the shopping. I just might get out the tree and put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving. Hubby has wreaths with burgundy color bows on them that he ties onto the window screens at the front of the house. (It has to be done because we are three acres in the middle of a wide open field. The winter winds peal across here and the wreaths would wind up in the field.) I am even thinking of maybe some outdoor lights. too

 

[dahli6]

We haven't had a tree in years. The last time we put one up all of the cats crawled into it. At night while we slept they threw ornaments to the dogs and the dogs chewed them.
Now for an annecdote.
When my daughter was a year old we found a stray kitten. We named him Paws. Paws really liked us but preferred to be a stray. He came and went as he pleased. When he was a year and a half old we had a Christmas tree and he really thought it was great fun... until he knocked it down onto himself. After the tree attacked he disappeared, only reappearing after the tree was gone. So it was every year, we would get a tree as late as possible and take it down as soon as we could because poor Paws was so afraid of it.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

I LOVE decorating for Christmas! I don't put up the tree till the day after Thanksgiving or maybe Thanksgiving night. Mom and I did it that way from the time we got our first artificial tree. I have probably 6-8 totes of Christmas things in the attic DH gets to bring down. I won't try it myself.

Right now I have fall lights and a fall leaf garland all around the kitchen. And pumpkins and things on top of the cabinets. And some other Thanksgiving/fall decorations around the house. It doesn't feel right to put up Christmas just yet. We usually host Thanksgiving too; so there is that.

Last year was the first time we put up lights on the house itself. I got a good deal on some LEDs on Black Friday (I'm not normally a black Friday shopper at all). We just bought an extension ladder last week so he can put them up this weekend hopefully. I won't turn them on till the day after Thanksgiving though. Last year we borrowed a ladder from a neighbor who works for a company that does siding and things; but he moved. Last night I had a dream our new ladder wasn't tall enough to reach.

While I'm super excited for Christmas; I'm also afraid to rush the reason. So I'll settle for shopping for now. Then we can enjoy the baking and crafts and things more.

We put up a big tree; which may need to be replaced in the next couple of years. I have been looking at some of the new trees that have more authentic looking needles on them. They are softer and more flexible plastic on some. My 2 like to chew the lower branches and it drives me nuts! I keep a can of compressed air nearby and spray it into the tree (it makes a hiss noise) whenever I catch them. I never spray the cats themselves! Just a sharp hiss in the tree!

We have a wood stove with a gate around it because I worry about the kids falling into it. DS has already had 2 staples put in his head from a fall right next to the slate pad it sits on. I could probably hang our stockings from the gate; but I have command hooks on the door frame next to the wood stove that we've used the last 5 years or so. My Aunt made our stockings and they are kind of long to hang from the gate. Mooch and Noodles have a couple stockings each. 2 go in DD's room and the others I always put on the kid's bedroom doors. I don't usually put anything in them. Both sets were gifts from TCSers years ago when we had Secret Santa exchanges.

 

[amysuen]

I decorate inside and outside Thanksgiving weekend. I LOVE Christmas and have a lot of decorations so almost every room gets something Christmasy. We get a real tree the first or second weekend in December, and it usually stays up until mid-January.