Epona's Journal: Xmas Tree

Does anyone else find this weird?

So it's the first weekend in December- a lot of people are buying their trees right now (indeed, I saw many cars with trees ontop while driving around today). If not this weekend, then certainly in the next two weeks.

Every year since I was young, my mother has bought our tree on the 23rd or the 24th. This results in two things:

1. Our tree is very poorly decorated
2. It is the saddest, most pathetic excuse for a tree you have ever laid eyes on

I remember as child, being dragged around from abandoned lot to abandoned lot on Christmas Eve, wondering why the hell we hadn't done this a few weeks before.

I confronted my mother about this earlier. It seems that family tradition > common sense.

Wow.

To early or too late?

[johndiii]

IMHO, Thanksgiving weekend is too early for the tree. Our tradition has always been to get the tree the weekend before Christmas (unless Christmas was a Monday or Tuesday, in which case we'd go another week earlier. Typically get the tree on Friday night, put it up in the stand on Friday. Saturday was kids and Dad go shopping for Mom. Often many presents were already bought, but the idea was just a fun day at the mall. Then the tree is decorated Saturday night. I always thought that it was better to l

Re:To early or too late?

[Ethelred Unraed]

We always got our tree a day or so before Christmas Eve.

Part of it is for the simple reason that the Christmas season doesn't even start until the 24th, and runs until Epiphany on the 6th of January (the "twelve days of Christmas"). The bit between Thanksgiving and Christmas is Advent, and that's what the Advent wreath is for...

The second reason has to do with those twelve days: our tree would stay green throughout the season, right up to the 6th, whereas many people's trees already look a bit forlorn b

Re:To early or too late?

[nizo]

What always scared me about buying a tree too early is that it turns into a fire hazard by xmas. Plus we used to use 40 year old bulbs on our tree that would burn your hand if you touched them after they had been on ten minutes, so this was a real concern. I have never bought a tree in my life however since my Mom lives way out in the boonies and would always bring one in for us. I suppose I could go the fake tree route, but now that I have a toddler we will probably not worry about it until next year.

Yes,

Re:To early or too late?

[Epona]

heh yeah we have the 40 year old light strings too.
And not only that, we have these hideous- I mean HIDEOUS tin reflector things that you put behind the bulb, making the whole tree look like a 1950's b-movie special effect.

then there was the year that my mom spray-painted the tree white to prevent it from catching on fire...