What was your childhood Christmas decor like? - Page 3

Winter Holiday · ‎06-15-2016

@SHOPR I absolutely love the Santa candle. QVC needs to reproduce this design and have it with something like microlights instead of wax. If done well it would be to die for. I would swoop it up in an instant.

I am really enjoying this topic on childhood Christmas decor. Christmas is truly magical.

Buck-i-Nana · ‎09-28-2010

It's fun thinking back on how Christmas was when I was a child. Back then, in my family, it was all about the atmosphere. I already described the decor, but it was also the sounds, with Christmas music always playing or being played, and the smell of cookies and special meals. It was time together going out to look at Christmas lights, Christmas caroling around the neighborhood. I can close my eyes and still see it in my mind and feel the warmth and love. The anticipation of Santa's arrival really only came into play on Christmas eve, all the rest was just pure pleasure I think.

That's what I try to recreate. The feeling of love and warmth and family and I hope that my children and grandchildren can close their eyes and remember years from now.

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@Buck-i-Nana wrote:
We made ornaments every year. Never had a lot of money to buy ornaments, but we made beautiful ornaments out of wood, twigs, ribbon, plaster, paper mache and anything else we thought of. My Dad was an artist and made a beautiful nativity scene on some kind of clear material cut to fit our front picture window. It was gorgeous and I kept it for many years battling the deterioration, but the materials used back then weren't really for long term.

We always had a basket near the fireplace filled with acorns and pinecones that we'd collect on our walks in the fall.

I remember the c9 bulbs on the tree with tin reflectors, my Mom's insistence that tinsel had to be placed on the tree 1 strand at a time ARGHHH! We always were one of the first to the Christmas tree lot when it opened. You could always find them because they had huge spotlights waving up into the sky to lead you to them. We would buy our tree and a wreath. The wreath would immediately go on the front door. The tree would be stowed up against the house, under the eaves where it would stay out in the cold until Christmas eve. Oh how we paced in anticipation of that tree!

We hung stockings on wrought iron hooks that were imbedded in the mortar over the fireplace (our fireplace didn't have a mantel). Our stockings were NEVER filled with toys, they were filled with nuts and candy canes and oranges and some chocolate candies.

Oh my gosh, I had forgotten about the spotlights at the Christmas tree lots. Thanks for that memory @Buck-i-Nana!

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@RetRN wrote:
Vintage. I remember multi-colored lights, silver icicles, displaying Christmas cards, and decorating sugar cookies and gingerbread men. My brother and I were only 13 months apart and each got 3 gifts. When little sister came along 7 years later, it seems she got more. On Christmas Eve at church we all recieved a bag fillted with candy, nuts, and fruit. Wonderful memories.

Oh, getting the Christmas cards in the mail daily was such a big deal. I loved to look at them over an over again.

I have saved Christmas cards from my closest family members over the decades and get them out each year to read and display again and again.

Even though I still send cards, we get only a couple each year now.

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@SHOPR wrote:
1970s. I don't remember much about the big picture, but I remember lots of small details. Money was tight and I don't think much money was ever spent, by anyone in our family or by any of our friends, on decorations. I think anything we had came from the dollar or dime stores of the time. We used the same few decorations year after year. I still have some of them.

I remember plastic sit-around decorations. Examples:

I still have (and love) three spotted deer like the ones below, but they are in very sad shape, have become brittle, and are breaking.

I remember the glass cylinder candles with decals. Everyone had them. I still have some from way back when, but I don't use them:

I also remember that we would either get a live Scotch Pine, which would stick me like crazy, or we would put up, limb by limb, a very modest artificial tree. We would use multicolor strands of mini lights, which 'til this day I love to look at come Christmas.

I remember everyone I knew having these balls on their trees:

I also remember that my mother would carefully place the tinsel, the really long strands, one by one.

Looking back, those were tacky times, but they are happy memories, and that is what matters.

I often wonder if that is what my kid (or I) will think of his childhood Christmas decor. It always seem so beautiful at the time, but as the times change we look back and say what was I thinking?' lol.

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@pupwhipped wrote:
Some of you may cringe, but we had one of those silver tinsel branch trees...and I ADORED it! It was the kind that you used the color wheel on. The best thing about our tree was that it rotated around. I would pick out an ornament and then wait for the tree to slowly spin and try to spy that ornament when it came back around. I was so proud of myself if it didn't get by me. So much FUN!!!

Our tree was similar to this one but we decorated with all kinds of different things on it, not just all these matched balls:

Those were the days, my friends!

@pupwhipped

We inherited one of those silver trees when I was a kid (from my grandparents when they moved to Florida), and I hated that thing.

I always fought (and often didn't win!) for a real tree, but we often went to Florida for Christmas, so that was sometimes out of the question. That is when the silver tree would come out. I couldn't wait for my mom to throw that thing away, along with it's color wheel!

I sure wish I had it today, though!

Spurt · ‎03-20-2010

We always had a real Christmas tree. Traditional decorations, multi colored big bulb lights. Me and my siblings always wanted the ornaments we made in school to be front and center on the tree, and we used tinsel back then. We did have few elegant ornaments too. To decorate other areas of home ---couple of Santa Claus /Reindeer items. Dining room table big red candle. I also remember the waxed candles (Santa/ Rudolph/Angels) we would buy at the Five And Ten to "decorate" our rooms for Christmas. I still have a couple of the more elegant ornaments from my childhood which I treasure deeply.

We also placed a nativity underneath the tree---we always got a chuckle because inevitably one of our cats would "steal" one of the nativity pieces thinking they were their new toys........

Today---well I love Christmas--- every room is decorated. I decorate in vintage style, although my Christmas tree has the light color options but I prefer multi, but the small tree in my bedroom is decorated more elegantly in white/silver with white lights. Little vinettes on my 2 book shelves, armoire, and coffe/end tables....dinning room table more elegantly styled.

Animals are reliable, full of love, true in their affections, grateful. Difficult standards for people to live up to.”

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@Kitlynn wrote:
We had a live tree that went up on the fifteenth of December. Large multi colored lights along with hand made ornaments and some store bought ones that were used every year. Lots of silver tinsel put on the tree one strand at a time. My Dad used snow in a can and stencils and put decorations on the picture window in the living room. He always made a yule log. Sometimes out of wood and sometimes out of a can and plaster of paris. It always had three candles with ribbon looped around the bottom of them. One string of outdoor lights acroos the front of the roof line. A large candle in the middle of a small wreath on the coffee table. Red table cloth with gold poinsettas on it was put on the kitchen table. Candy dish with hard ribbon christmas candy sat in the middle of the table. Then we were ready to celebrate. It only took a few hours to put it all together.

@Kitlynn

I think the entire Christmas decorating, including the tree, was done in just a couple of hours at our house too, and that was if we moved slowly!

So different than what we do today!

Kitlynn · ‎03-09-2010

I absolutely love Christmas and we decorate inside and out and it is wonderful but I have to say every year I do think back to my childhood and how the holiday was so magical and how it didn't take but a few hours to do it all and now it takes several days!! LOL I am not sure if it is a good thing or if it should be back to the simpler way. But I won't be finding that out anytime soon!! LOL LOL

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@Buck-i-Nana wrote:
It's fun thinking back on how Christmas was when I was a child. Back then, in my family, it was all about the atmosphere. I already described the decor, but it was also the sounds, with Christmas music always playing or being played, and the smell of cookies and special meals. It was time together going out to look at Christmas lights, Christmas caroling around the neighborhood. I can close my eyes and still see it in my mind and feel the warmth and love. The anticipation of Santa's arrival really only came into play on Christmas eve, all the rest was just pure pleasure I think.

That's what I try to recreate. The feeling of love and warmth and family and I hope that my children and grandchildren can close their eyes and remember years from now.

@Buck-i-Nana

Oh the baking!

My mom and my great aunt would start baking the first of November (on Wednesday, which was my mom's day off from work) and they would freeze cookies, baking at least 300 dozen per year, for a month and a half.

They split the total, and each gave away cookie plates with at least a dozen different kinds of special cookies on each one.

We also were still eating Christmas cookies at Valentine's Day!

I carry on that tradition, but on a much smaller scale, using many of their recipes.