Christmas trees: what are your preferred decorations?

[sinenomine]

My sister and I put up our Christmas trees yesterday and exchanged photos of our handiwork. Despite growing up in the same house, we decorate our trees differently: she does colored lights and just ornaments, while I have garland, ornaments, and tinsel (and white lights by default on my pre-lit tree). What are your preferences?

[mamselle]

Might this be broadened to favorite Channukah decorations (some menorah are beautiful creations in glass, fine metals, etc...some with significant stories to go with them); Kwanzaa light holders, etc.?

I considered starting a different thread but that seems to alienate non-Christian members into "all others"--but then, some of my Jewish students' families have both a Menorah and a tree...

So....thoughts?

At a time in our nation's life when inclusivity is so important, I just raise the question in a spirit of warmth and caring...

M.

[onthefringe]

I think this could be broadened to holiday decorations

We are completely areligious but do have a tree. Small colored lights, ornaments (non matchy, inherited or collected one at a time as souvenirs etc), no tinsel or garland (the current cat's "life" goal is to die of an intestinal impaction).

The fringelet gets an ornament each year as a gift, so when she has her own place to celebrate the holidays she will have a starter set of 20-odd ornaments.

[cathwen]

My husband and I grew up in families (maybe the last on earth?) that waited until Christmas Eve to put up the tree and decorate it. We continue that tradition, although none of our daughters have. 

Decorations consist of an odd collection of mostly non-breakable ornaments (thanks to many years of having cats) and small colored lights.  We have an angel on top of the tree, although I would prefer a star, as that is what my family had.  Since we no longer have the endurance to attend a midnight service, we put up the tree, go to the 5:00 service, and come home for a simple supper, decorating, and then sitting down with Christmas cookies and eggnog. 

Once one of our friends was visiting during the holidays at a time when Christmas and Chanukah coincided.  So we had the tree, a menorah, candles, and made latkes as part of Christmas dinner. 

[Liquidambar]

Small colored lights, ornaments (non matchy, inherited or collected one at a time as souvenirs etc), no tinsel or garland (the current cat's "life" goal is to die of an intestinal impaction).

That sounds like what we do.  Last year I picked a color scheme for the tree and used only the ornaments that fit with the color scheme, but it was still very eclectic.  We have a lit star at the top of the tree.

We always do a real tree, so we can't keep it up for too long because it gets crunchy.  Probably I'll get one in about a week and a half.  I need to check if one of our pine saplings that's scheduled for removal might work as a (Charlie Brown-ish) Christmas tree.

[hmaria1609]

We have some handmade beaded ornaments from one of my aunts who was great with crafts. She's long deceased however I think of her when I see them on our Christmas tree. We have a large angel on top of our tree.
I put up only what I'm willing take down in early January!

[dismalist]

We use natural trees only, on which we put real candles. Easy on the ornaments and tinsel. Occasionally, the trees have lasted until Easter.

As we have aged our trees have gotten smaller. :-)

[Parasaurolophus]

Bones.

[Mobius]

My wife likes white liights and I like multicolored strands on the tree. We alternate colors every year to save the marriage.

[apl68]

We usually put up the tree about a week before Christmas.  My brother and I would crawl into a very hard-to-reach crawl space to fetch the decorations for Mom.  That was an adventure in itself--it involved climbing over a commode, removing items from a bathroom cabinet behind the commode, and crawling through a hidden door in back of the cabinet, to a space beside the water heater (Helping Dad replace the water heater was really an experience...).

Mostly we decorated the tree with lights, balls, and assorted other ornaments.  Over the years we accumulated some distinctive ornaments that had to go on every year.  There was a tiny airplane ornament, a tiny skiing elf ornament, and a toy soldier ornament that had all three probably been in the family longer than I had.  There were balls with grade-school age pictures of me and my brother, and an old ornament with "Merry Christmas." 

And there were three ornaments that a boy about our age at our church gave to our family on three successive years.  Each one had the year on it.  There was no fourth ornament, because he had a chronic illness and died that year.  I think he was perhaps eleven at the time.  Those always got good spots on the tree.

[onehappyunicorn]

My wife is the one who is really into decorating so I let her choose, I am just there to reach the high places and hold things.
She really likes the blown glass ornaments, which means the tree is locked up in our sitting room away from our cats who would love nothing more than to break a few dozen of them.

[EdnaMode]

I have an old 7.5' pre-lit tree with white incandescent fairy lights on it - got it in a post-Christmas sale. There are multiple sections now that don't light up so when I take down the tree this year, will cut out and remove all the existing lights (the tree itself is in pretty good shape) and for next year will probably buy some C9 multicolored led lights for it. We always had the C9s on our trees growing up and I miss the multicolored glow. All of the ornaments are either from my childhood (including the slightly battered angel on top), or from my travels, or gifts from friends. It's pretty eclectic. I also have a couple small nativity scenes, other random decorations on shelves and hanging up, a 4' tree upstairs on the upstairs balcony, only lit with white fairy lights, a 3' tree on the landing with multicolored fairy lights and little snowpeople decorations, battery operated candles on a timer lining the stairs, wreaths outside, candles in the windows (have those on all year long, though), and fairy lights on the porch railings. Yep. I love me some Christmas decorations.

[secundem_artem]

We've got a 2 footer from Target that uses some fiber optic strands to reflect colors off a revolving disc in the base.  Set up and takedown is about 15 seconds.

https://www.target.com/p/2ft-national-tree-company-unlit-artificial-christmas-tree-led-fiber-optic-crestwood-spruce/-/A-52664519#lnk=sametab

[Harlow2]

My husband and I grew up in families (maybe the last on earth?) that waited until Christmas Eve to put up the tree and decorate it. We continue that tradition, although none of our daughters have. 

Decorations consist of an odd collection of mostly non-breakable ornaments (thanks to many years of having cats) and small colored lights.  We have an angel on top of the tree, although I would prefer a star, as that is what my family had.  Since we no longer have the endurance to attend a midnight service, we put up the tree, go to the 5:00 service, and come home for a simple supper, decorating, and then sitting down with Christmas cookies and eggnog. 

I, too, grew up in a family where the tree was erected and decorated on Christmas Eve, in our house after the three of us children went to bed.  Lots of old-fashioned icicles, colored lights, glass ornaments It was pure magic for us to wake up to,  but not, alas, for our parents, who also had been putting tricycles and toys together into the wee hours. They emerged somewhat less energetically.  I think the Christmas Eve tree decorating was a German custom, at least that seemed to be the case in part of my father' family.

Our tree will go up in a day or two, and we will join a Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols service and be home and tucked in well before midnight.

[the_geneticist]

We get a real tree and put on white lights.  Our ornament collection is quite eclectic - ones from childhood, travel, gifts from family & friends, ones I've made recently, etc.
Somehow we won the "cat lottery" as none of them have been interested in climbing the tree or destroying ornaments.  If anything, they seem to appreciate a new hiding spot and water dish in the living room.