Holiday

[jubilant]

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@skatting44 wrote:

 Always a fresh fir tree. Sometimes my Father would take us to cut our own tree.

Our tree was decked  with so much   silver tinsel, that it covered some ornaments .

We would play Christmas music while we were decorating  the tree.

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@skatting44  You brought back a memory for me.  How could I forget the Christmas music?  Till this day, even though I mostly decorate my tree alone, I have to put on some Christmas music. Thanks for the memory!

[chrystaltree]

When I was a kid, we always had real trees.  It was a Christmas tradition.  Around the middle of December, we piled into my dad's car and drove out to Christmas  tree farm to buy two trees.  A big one for us, a smaller one for my grandparents.  The ran around the tree lot while parents picked out the trees and a wreath for the front door.  It felt like it took forever!   There were usually other kids we ran around with.   Trees lashed to the top of the car, the wreath in the trunk, we set off home.  We always stopped somewhere for hot chocolate and pie.  My parents wouldn't even think about a fake tree or a fake wreath.  I continued that tradition until my own girls went off to college.  That's when we got our first artificial trees but we went to a local nursery for wreaths, poinsettias, garlands.  We needed the smell of real Christmas greenery in the house.  My previous artificial trees were green and looked real but last Christmas we got a huge gorgeous pale blue tree for the living room.  My sweet 8 year old great niece wanted blue, her favorite color.  She's like our grandchild, hubby can't deny the grandkids anything. LOL.  My mom would be horrified.  We decorated it with silver, white, ice blue ornaments and had the lights flashing on the warm light setting.  

[Mominohio]

It really varied through the years. 

When we were tiny kiddos, we always had a real tree. My folks were living on a shoe string, and the local tree lots had a tradition of giving away, late Christmas Eve, the unsold trees to the police officers if they needed one. Being that my dad was a police officer, and they would not have been able to get us gifts and a tree, that is where our first few trees came from. They were small (my little 5'4" inch mom towers over them in the old photos! lol), not well shaped, but such a wonder to us as little preschoolers. 

As we got older, mom and dad decided a 'fake' tree was the way to go. We kids begged each year for a real tree. Some years they allowed that, but most years no. The tree was pretty fake looking and nothing like the beauties we have today. 

My grandparents had a silver tree with the color wheel, and in our grade school years, after they retired and sold their home, we had that tree, and often that one was used if we were going to be gone over Christmas, to Florida to see my grandparents. We hated that tree most of all. 

We never had a lot of decorations, and most were heavily used and tattered, a few new cheap somethings added every year. 

In reality, our trees were tacky, sparse and not very well lit, as lights cost a lot of money and we had only a few. 

We were never allowed to put the tree up, real or fake, until about two weeks before Christmas Day. 

But we didn't mind the lack of elegance. We'd lay under the tree, and watch the lights, as the Christmas programs were broadcast on the television (the one and only time they would/could be seen all year long, so don't miss them!!!), and dream about what we might get on Christmas morning. 

The season was full of school programs, church programs, the excitement of school vacation and playing with our friends, sled riding, staying up late, watching the Christmas specials. The tree was the center of our holiday decor. We had maybe only one box of other things that sat about. But it was all we needed and seemed so magnificent at the time.

[AuntG]

Always real and often crooked. C7 lights for many years with shiny ornaments. Things were pretty simple and most houses had something similar. My grandpa had one of those silver trees with a color wheel - now that was high tech!

[Calgal2too]

Very little $$ in the family when I was young, but we did have a tree from a tree lot, probably 6 or 7 feet.   The only decoration I remember, are the gigantic blue bulb lights on a heavy green cord.  We used the foil tinsel strands as 'icicles'; had to be very careful in placing those on the branches, or someone was unhappy.   LOL   Don't remember the individual ornaments, though. I'm sure they were just plain glass round ornaments, nothing special.

My grandparents had one of those silver aluminum trees.  I remember it being on top of a box or stand of some sort, so it must have been 3-4' tall, and it had the light with the revolving color wheel.  Don't remember how it was decorated, but I remember being mesmerized by the changing colors.

I don't remember any other decorations, not even a wreath, at home.  Maybe that's why I go all out during the holidays.    

[wagirl]

My mom LOVED the flocked snow trees and she would would choose a color , like blue and green to decor with. We would walk down to the local hardware store called, Chubby and Tubby, pick out a tree for $1 and walk home. Dad would put in in the garage and trim it up then flock it. Was magical

[bikerbabe]

No real tree. They were too difficult my mom to maneuver in and out of the house by herself. We got a real tree when I was older, high school, and could handle it myself. I stopped doing a real tree about 5 years ago.