How do you decorate for the Holidays?

[Joe Valencic]

Our home is decorated for Christmas with the kids (28, 25 & 22) stockings on the mantle and the tree decorated with ornaments made by the kids or given as gifts over past 35 years. Even a few ornaments from out childhoods in the 50's and 60's. No commercial ornaments on our tree for at least 28 years.

Joe

[flybinder]

Beautiful tree, Joe!
How'd you get that perfect shape, on your tree? Attack it with a pair of Dr.Slick fine points?
Very pretty, and I also think; "homemade, gifted, and antique ornaments with some history behind them", make the BEST decorated trees.
Remember the "Aluminum tree fad, w/the revolving 3 color light wheel", of the late sixties, early seventies? God, those things were ugly!
Happy Holidays, Joe, to you and yours!
Paul

[nighthawk]

Beautiful tree, Joe! We don't put up a tree anymore. Just too much trouble but we may put one up this year to celebrate Amy's non cancer biopsy report! We contribute to the efforts of our land lord's son as he decorates the duplex. I will post picture later. We aren't done yet. Here is a teaser, we have to draw the blinds to be able to sleep at night!

From 2006:

[DG]

Well I am 2/3 done with cleaning the place, in case my landlady comes in while I am in Denver this week. Other than that, nothing changes. My last Christmas tree was the first year my ex and I had a real place together (somewhere ca 1990), and we had to hang rooster tails and steelees on the tree because we couldn't afford ornaments. 30 plus million real christmas trees cut and placed in people's homes every year, I don't need to contribute to that.

DG

[nighthawk]

Well I am 2/3 done with cleaning the place, in case my landlady comes in while I am in Denver this week. Other than that, nothing changes. My last Christmas tree was the first year my ex and I had a real place together (somewhere ca 1990), and we had to hang rooster tails and steelies on the tree because we couldn't afford ornaments. 30 plus million real Christmas trees cut and placed in people's homes every year, I don't need to contribute to that.

DG

Doug,
If you spend a little cash on a artificial one no one will know the difference once they are decorated. Also, most of today's live trees are farm raised just for that purpose just like the food you eat. No more going into the woods and cutting down a tree but even that is not harmful if you harvest properly on your land. Some states collect live discarded trees to put in their still waters for cover for aquatic life. Also, one can buy a potted live tree and then donate it to groups like The Arbor Day Foundation to be transplanted.

Heck, lots of game farms will take them in for cover for wild game. We have an artificial tree bought after Christmas one year for 75% off! I do not ever recall my family throwing out a live tree though I know people do it. When I see this I help them find an alternative to disposing of the tree in the garbage unless their community uses the tree for good purposes.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[Joe Valencic]

I have no problem with "tree farms," as they create jobs and replant trees every year. Pines grow 12" or more each year, so it does not take many years to get them to market size.

Our community collects the discarded trees and recycles them along with yard waste as compost, so there is no waste. It's actually a pretty good cottage industry in my neck of the woods, with dozens of tree farms dotting the surrounding counties. We also place them on the ice and weigh them down with cement blocks. At the Spring melt, they go to the bottom and become fish habitat for many years.

Our artificial tree is in its fourth year, and the previous one was used for 16 years before being donated to a local community group who still use it. I'm lazy in my later years, and don't enjoy tromping around to cut or a buy a tree.

Joe

[nighthawk]

I have no problem with "tree farms," as they create jobs and replant trees every year. Pines grow 12" or more each year, so it does not take many years to get them to market size.

Our community collects the discarded trees and recycles them along with yard waste as compost, so there is no waste. It's actually a pretty good cottage industry in my neck of the woods, with dozens of tree farms dotting the surrounding counties. We also place them on the ice and weigh them down with cement blocks. At the Spring melt, they go to the bottom and become fish habitat for many years.

Our artificial tree is in its fourth year, and the previous one was used for 16 years before being donated to a local community group who still use it. I'm lazy in my later years, and don't enjoy tromping around to cut or a buy a tree.

Joe

On some of the reclaimed strip mines in your area that is about the only thing that will grow. I know because I was born and raised in Grove City, Pa. some of the really old mines are now great fisheries for bass and warm water species. The pines were planted on their banks and spoil piles to help prevent soil erosion.

Joe,
I really do want to meet you sometime and wet some lines together. A big pat on the back to you and your community!

[MontanaMoose]

Hey Joe ! Great post, great looking tree...we're artificial here too but we have a lot of homemade ornaments dating back to the early 70's, heck I even made/helped make a bunch of them...bet you have Christmas tunes on what appears to be a Bose. Did you make the mantle and is that a gas jet or is it the real deal? Good lookin' room all around. Merry Christmas friend ! Whoa, I'm slippin' into Christmas !

Cheers,

MontanaMoose

[Gnu Bee Flyer]

Our tree looks very like Yours does with the same angel on the top except ours has a burgendy dress on it.

We bought a ceramic winter scene to fit into our Christmas village. It is supposed to play 40 different Christmas tunes . It does sort of. 35 songs are traditional Christmas tunes but interspersed among them is Pop goes the weasel, Good night Irene, The French national anthem, give a little whistle and one tune none of us even recognised. It would seem that the Chinese haven't quite caught on to the North American ways 100% yet

This is me and yep the beard is real.



Two of my dogs, Casa and Bud. Together they are a case a bud!
The fence around the tree is called the dingo fence.
Casa is a chow hound and likes to open presents on spec.



Yahoo our cristmas cactus bloomed after 20 years of not blooming.



Our tree

[DG]

Eric, I hate to see good cropland turned into a place to grow decorations. At a thousand trees per acre, 30 million trees is a LOT of arable land. It takes 1.2 acres of land to feed a person in the US now, so 25000 people's worth of cropland just to grow decorations...

And a tree farm is in no way a forest, so I can't count it as such.

But it creates jobs, adds a billion and change in product to the economy, thins the forest here and there, and makes people happy, so...

Recycle the tree. I spent years trying and failing to get the local water district guy to let me use christmas trees to make fish structure in the city water supply lake back in CA. Oh well.