My son is pushing me out of his life

[Pooh]

I have an Aunt that does a colored light bulb on her front porch for every occasion.  She changes it out every holiday.  Red at Christmas and Valentines, green for Saint Patty's, Yellow for Easter, Blue for 4th of July, orange for Halloween, etc.  I used to laugh when I was growing up because her porch at night always had this colored light in the overhead fixture that would bathe the porch in a color.

[elsieshaye]

I have to admit, Pooh, that I really like your aunt's idea.  Although I suspect my son would say "Really, mom?  Really???  Why can't you just put up a wreath like normal people?" and then laugh.  (It might be worth doing, just to get that reaction from him, lol!)

I do need to at least swap out the color of the flowers in my door decoration, though.  Everyone else has fall-themed stuff up, and I still have silk lilacs in a bucket with a spring green ribbon around it.  If I get dark red mums and a gold ribbon, maybe I can have 'em do double duty for fall and Christmas.

[Pooh]

Elsie, I remember my Mother, who loved this Sister to death, telling my Dad, "I bet at Christmas and Valentines, people that drive by and don't know my sister, thinks she's running a brothel!"

I didn't get it then.....I DO NOW!  Lol.

[luise.volta]

I love lights inside and out. One year when I took the colored lights down from my fake-ficus tree, it looked so plain I bought a string of clear lights and left them on it all year! 

[Sheen]

Luise, I had to laugh over your ficus tree, when I lived in Fla I also had one and did the same thing.  They look very pretty with the lights. When I moved across the pond, I brought my artificial tree along with the 60 boxes of decorations and the first few years we actually had people drive by our home to look at that crazy American with all the Christmas lights .  In our family, we always had three trees and the kids each had one in their rooms.  The Christmas village got bigger and bigger each year . Now when I say don't think I will put this up or that up, the girls all yell Grinch lol.  They all have adopted my passion for decorating in their own homes and have quite a collection of their own going although I do give each an ornament or Santa every year to add to it lol.

It is soooooooooooo dark here from Nov thru April that the more lights the better, now that they have brought in the LED here, I am ready to replace all my lights with them, I looooooooooove  this holiday.

[jomama]

WooHoo! Ladies, you've been warned. Sheen and I will decorate the Grinches!

[Hope]

You ladies are so funny and festive!  Last year I bought all new ornaments for my one and only tree - and that's enough for me (cause it's so much work)!  But Christmas trees are so beautiful......I'd have them in every room of the house if I had the energy and resources.
I always had a tree with our kids' handmade ornaments, ornament gifts, and the ornaments my dh and I bought when we were engaged - 36 years ago:)  Last year my dh announced that he wanted a "designer" tree.  Well, he's getting a designer tree!  I just happened upon an incredible clearance sale at Dilliards in January 2010 - and I bought over $1,000 worth of ornaments for under a $100, plus I bought us a giant new tree and a beautiful elegant skirt.  No one can stop us this year!
The problem is what do I do with all the sentimental ornaments I have collected over 36 years?  I really don't want the hassle of putting up two trees - there's only two days that we have company over the holidays.
Plus our ydd is getting married the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so we will be on exhaustion alert.
We use to decorate inside and out till we burst at the seams - but not any more.  Maybe we'll be more ambitious as our baby gs gets older and hopefully more gc come along.
You are all putting me in the spirit for sure!  (I'd love to put a cute animated figure here like jazzy jomama, but I don't know how.)
Hugs, Hope

[Sheen]

Hey Jomamma, How did we miss that sale that Hope went to ?  What to do with the sentimental ornaments hmmmm hence the reason we have multiple trees lol.  I went home to the states last Thanksgiving  and my daughters all thought that it was so great to go back for the holiday.  Turkey is good but hell I went for Black Friday and the Christmas decorations.  We were in those stores at 5am   I absolutely loved it.  True story here,  when I first moved to Sweden, the first Christmas we were driving around and I couldn't get over the spirit of all the Jewish households all their pretty candlabras in the windows.   I mentioned it to my  hub and said how come the Christian Swedes don't decorate as much, I think he laughed for twenty minutes before he explained that those were regular Jul decorations.   I am soooooo glad I brought my tree with me because honestly   these trees look like a poor rendition of Charlie Brown's tree but I think I am converting them to know that its ok to put more on your tree then red balls  lol. 

Ho Ho Ho

[luise.volta]

When I was a little girl (we are talking about the early 1930s here, girls) my dad would drive up to our summer log cabin taking me with him and cut down the Christmas tree my other had picked out and tagged the summer before. He would always cut down a little one for me to have in my room. 

[Pen]

Now that's a Norman Rockwell picture!

[luise.volta]

 

[Nana]

Lovely memories

[Hope]

When I was a little girl (we are talking about the early 1930s here, girls) my dad would drive up to our summer log cabin taking me with him and cut down the Christmas tree my other had picked out and tagged the summer before. He would always cut down a little one for me to have in my room. 

Awww.  I love this story. What a lucky little girl you were!
Hugs, Hope

[luise.volta]

It wasn't always that lovely of course, but that part of it was.  My dad was a prince!

[Hope]

I'm sure your prince of a Dad had a lot to do with the wonderful person you are today:)  Soooooo, thanks to your Dad!
Hugs, Hope