Christmas Lights and Decorations

Real Christmas Tree or Fake Tree. Icky Icicle lights hanging from balconies and eaves troughs. Colours? Classic red, green and white? Blue lights on trees and shrubs, or even worse, purple? Pine or Fir swags with red bows and white intertwined lights? Coloured spot-lights highlighting silver birch trees? Grinning plastic snowmen? Nativity scenes?

On top of a balcony across from my apartment there is this huge, very ellaborate train engine. Complete with special effects - wheels made from circles of lights that blink in sequence so that it looks like the wheels are turning - more blinking lights set to replicate steam puffing from the engine's chimney. Enough already. What does a train engine have to do with Christmas? At least they turn the lights off around 11 p.m. Am I mything something here?

Fess up peeps.

Gillian

Okay, I have a confession to make. (Maybe this belongs on the "101 things" thread?)

I have a thing for fibreoptics. I think I bought one of the first fibreoptic light trees that was ever sold here. It's about 18" high, pot and all. And I bought a bigger one this year (still tabletop size -- no room for a full size tree in the rooms that the dogs can't access).

I do draw the line at fibreoptic poinsettias, however.

I LOVE Christmas. I'm allergic to real trees so I have an 8 foot scotch pine in artificial form. It has tons of ornaments, a gorgeous angel on the top and lots and lots of tinsel!

I'm not celebrating Christmas this year.

Rotting pumpkins would be fine but I also did not celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving.

Oh dear Swan....how come you're not celebrating this year? Not even one hint of sparkle anywhere around the house? Can I send you a Christmas Angel?

Gillian

*Sends Santa straight over to Swan's house, complete with decs and a bottle of "jolly"!* :D

I always buy a white pine for our Christmas tree. It has long, soft needles that don't hurt when you're decorating or undecorating. We hang blue icicle lights along our gutters, and flashing white ones around our tree in the front yard. We also place white "chasing lights" around the porch railings.

I place berry scented candles throughout the house. I put all of our Christmas cards on a very big mirror in the entryway. An antique table sits below it, with a whole "town" of miniature houses, people, streetlamps, and horses. A strand of reindeer bells hangs from the front doorknob. We have traditional decs in the bathroom, the hall, the kitchen, and evergreen boughs in the windowsills, with shiny ornament balls scattered throughout them.

I have a Christmas tablecloth handed down from my grandmother. I use it for Christmas Day. It always tears my mom up. Well, EVERYTHING tears my mom up (time to up the meds) but this really gets her! :D I serve our Christmas dinner on it: Filet of beef tenderloin, done medium to medium rare, a side of au jus, new potatoes boiled and seasoned with dill and garlic, green bean casserole, crescent rolls, and a Cabernet from Napa Valley. Real butter adorns the table (one of the few times of year I eat real butter). Dessert is usually my mom's "wedding cookies" (think she's trying to tell me something?) and a Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Layer Cake. When in doubt, buy Pepperidge Farm! Especially the stuffing, it's unbeatable!

NEEEEEEXT!

Although we do have pine trees in Brazil, especially under my state to the south, we usually buy artificial trees (you'd think we like cutting down trees, but no! :D ). We use the same tree over and over again! And even in the poorest houses you'll find some kind of decoration, it's the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and Jesus was very poor, and Brazilians put lots of emphasis on that.

All my family members decorate their trees; it's very traditional, glass balls of different colours, cotton to imitate snow. It's high Summer in December, and often the temperature is higher than 35 °C, usually 40°C -you calculate ;) - and still Santas are everywhere dressed in their red velvet costumes. :rolleyes:

People are very traditional in Brazil and in my island, the best decoration in the façade of buildings get prizes. So all the tenants in the same apartment building work together to try to win a car, or money, etc. It's magical.

http://www.cutegifs-natal.blogger.com.br/natal36.gif

Polly...lovely...just lovely

Originally posted by Gillian
Oh dear Swan....how come you're not celebrating this year? Not even one hint of sparkle anywhere around the house? Can I send you a Christmas Angel?

Gillian

Missing one year is not a catastrophe

we are poverty striken this year.

We can learn that Christmas is not decorations and gifts.

Swan, you got gifts on the "Gift that Keeps on Giving" thread......

Polly, I didn't get my invitation this year...you know, to have Christmas at your house?

I confess, I don't have my tree up yet, and I have to use artificial because I have allergies. *frown*

Swan, I know just how you feel. A few years back, I think three, my youngest son got aspiration pneumonia and just almost died. He got it on Halloween, and I was off work for the entire month of November basically, and maybe partial time in December. We do have an artifical tree, so I did manage that. About a week before Christmas, someone showed up in my driveway I had NEVER met before, and started unloading gifts. They had out of county tags, and said the presents were from someone who wished to remain anonymous. It was obviously someone who knew my children, as the gifts had personal notes, and were just right. Not long after that, the church showed up with all the makings for a Christmas dinner. AND...someone other than me put my kids names on an angel tree, and they got some gifts from that as well. I couldn't believe the outpouring of love we received. But the best gift we received that year was getting Jake back home.

There are a lot of really totally wonderful community resources available....if you want to take advantage of those. But I sure feel for you...putting on a brave face, because I do remember how I felt with Christmas drawing near that year. *hugs*

Originally posted by Savannah

I do draw the line at fibreoptic poinsettias, however.

LOL! Too cute!! Give in .... resistance is futile!

Originally posted by Savannah
Swan, you got gifts on the "Gift that Keeps on Giving" thread......

WOW thanks for telling me. A Magic 8 Ball and a Magic Armoire.

What wonderful gifts, I can know the future and travel to mysterious places.

:D :D :D

I do understand Swan. For me, this is a most depressing time of the year. I know I'm not alone in that feeling. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. Guess I started the thread as my way of trying to jolly myself up about the whole Christmas thing. I sometimes wish it would just all go away.

Gillian

Originally posted by Gillian
I do understand Swan. For me, this is a most depressing time of the year. I know I'm not alone in that feeling. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. Guess I started the thread as my way of trying to jolly myself up about the whole Christmas thing. I sometimes wish it would just all go away.

Gillian

Even in the best of times I have not been a Chistmas fan.

Sorry you feel the same way. I think Christmas, for some, brings out all that is lacking in their lives, whether it is money or family.

Then on top of it, it is supposed to be a religious holiday but that connection is pretty weak if you ask me, it is more of a Pagan holiday.

JUST MHO.

I have been reading the posts in this thread and now I just have to respond.

I too, am looking at a rather "depressed" Christmas this year, (if I allow it to be that way).

Money is super tight.
I have to move from here by the end of January.
This could be the last Christmas I will share with my children living with me.
I can't be with my mother or my brother this year as they are traveling elsewhere.

I don't have a tree yet.
Haven't decorated a thing.
No lights on the outside of the house yet.
Have not done any shopping.

All the Christmas commercials make me want to throw something big and hard at the TV set.

BUT
many years ago, I learned that Christmas isn't about gifts or money.
Christmas is what YOU make it out to be!

I have a beautiful new baby granddaughter to celebrate with this Christmas.
I have made wonderful friends here at Ageless to rejoice with this Christmas.
I am healthy, (aside from this cold/flu).
I have my children to share the day with, (and my birthday with).

The good outweighs the bad.

I left the link to a webpage I had written about a real bad and poor Christmas I had, it was called "Little Red Bows" and it is in the "Enter Christmas' thread.
As poor as we were and as alone as I felt, it turned out to be one of my most fondly remembered Christmases.

Sometimes having a good Christmas is as simple as extending yourself out to others and helping them have a good Christmas.

I knew a man that makes a lone trek to some high cliffs that overlook the ocean every Christmas morning.
There he reflects and rejoices in what Christmas means to him.

I guess one needs to first figure out what Christmas means to you and then focus on that.
If it only means spending money and giving or getting gifts, then disappointment can be easily had.

If Christmas means to take the day and rejoice in living and being grateful for the gifts we receive daily from our faith, then even the most simple gesture or tradition can bring you the greatest joy.

Once you have found that joy, share it with others.
That is the true gift of Christmas