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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/5/2009 8:35:40 AM

kiwisub12

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Cow skull was picked up by my Sir when he was visiting his grandfather on the reservation.(he is half Indian) His ex painted it with Indian symbols - it is really cool - and I thought it deserved to be decorationed up for Christmas.

my Sir would prefer to hunt subbies than cows. Much more challenge!

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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/5/2009 8:47:04 AM

Phoenixpower

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I was never bothered to decorate in my flat in the UK as I have too many restrictions to get the stuff on the wall and too many financial restrictions on top of it in my current situation. So I am simply not really bothered to waste money into it right now (as after all I already have storage limitations anyway in my small 1 bedroom flat and once I relocate it is likely that a lot of my stuff will get sold or end up in the bin...so I am just not in the spirits to buy stuff for decorations at present) and so my cats also won't get any temptations to kick them down

However at home we always used to take a tree out of our forest or out of a forest from friends, one for the lounge and one for the balcony and in the last years my parents started to put a lot of stuff outside for decoration as well.

As children my brother and I used to have a little lighting-string with different coloured mini-bulbs stuck with tape onto our windows and gosh we loved when the season came up and we could put that up again for 4-6 weeks

Once I leave the UK I will start being bothered about decorating again and I am someone who does not approve of fake trees. I do understand peoples reasons for it, but I prefer the real stuff inclusive its gorgeous smell

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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/5/2009 12:26:29 PM

Missokyst

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I am thinking of buying new ornaments this year because I stored my holiday items in my storage shed outside in my back yard. There are spiders out there! And mice, rats, and gophers! Not to mention those stupid beetle things that look like large roaches! <<shudder>>

It really is time to buy new stuff.

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Post #: 43

RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/5/2009 7:12:34 PM

DomMeinCT

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DesFIP

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomMeinCT

Well, I managed to set my kitchen counter on fire just fine with a regular candle menorah last year.

I plan to light all 5 or 6 of the menorahs I've collected each night, but they'll be on metal cookie sheet this year.

My problem is wax dripping onto place mats and ruining them. A cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil would cure that. Thanks for the suggestion.

Yes, believe me, that's a MUCH BETTER solution than using paper towels, which catch the wax, but are incredibly fast to catch on fire when a candle falls out.

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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/5/2009 7:38:47 PM

laura2161

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From: Duluth, GA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: peppermint

We don't do the simple and elegant here. We do the outrageous and gaudy!!! We live in an RV park in AZ for the winter. We are in the process of turning our parking pad which is all the room we have into a winter wonderland. The car of course is parked elsewhere for the season.

We have 200 snowflakes suspended from wires 10 feet up. We have snowflake path lights, snowflake hanging lighs, 42" lighted snowflakes, and we're covering the entire area in cotton batting to resemble snow. Gary went a bit wild at the after holiday sales when items were 75% off. He added 11 new Christmas trees to our yard decorations. We also have a huge snowman and a rocking horse with bear riders and a train set.

On Christmas Eve we'll set up tables and chairs on the road. We'll have candy, cookies, hot chocolate, coffee, and wine for whoever walks by. We'll also set up the karaoke machine so we can all do Christmas carols. It's all done for the fun of it. We're all far from family during the holidays and we enjoy bringing a bit of cheer to others.

That sounds absolutely WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could see it :-)

I also like the 'gaudy' instead of elegant.

This is the first year that I am not putting up the 6 foot tree. With the downstairs converted for my business there really isnt any room but I did put up a table top tree in the living room (3 foot)-with red lights- and have another 3 foot table top tree in my grand daughters room with white lights (Its a purple tree- LOL)

A wreath on the door and signs of Santa Stop Here in the windows alongside the door. 2 blinking lighted huge ornaments in the front window , a couple of very large cut outs of Santa and Snowmen in the living room and the fireplace mantle filled with all of my Christmas globes.

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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/6/2009 4:28:43 AM

rockspider

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Well her royal highness, the princess of the manor is having cristmas at her mums. I am going out both cristmas eve and boxing day. So indoor there really is nothing more than the circle of advent. A ring of pine with four candles you light every 4 last sunday before cristmas. That have to be. On the doors hangs the usual cristmas decorations and over every single door from the outdoors to the indoors hangs a bunch oats still on the straw. It is for the birds. Cloose to the road i got a tree i do hang up some lightchains in. But as it is getting taller every year they are really only half way up and nothing but a cherrypicker will do to get it right. But it looks nice at a distance specially and you can see it from about 3 km away. A lonely beacon of light in the else dark winter.
If the princess is here we do walk over to a neighboor (he is payed in advance). Saw in hand, she picks the one and i cut it down. Then we have to carry it home together. Old tradition really. To carry cristmas in to the home needs all hands on the tree. It is her job to decorate it. The house would be full of pine and "nisser" everywhere. One thing is the decoration made of clay with pine and various colored glasbulbs surrounding a calendar light. A candle with 24 markings on so you burn a mark a day. And in the days up to christmas we make cookies as my mum made them. We do eat a few but 3 months later they normally end up on the birdfeeder. On the 23. you have to remember to make a portion of rice porridge which gets put in the attich. Else the daddy nisse gets mad and do all sort of funny things to tease you the rest of the year. The last section i don't have to do this year. Pity, i do enjoy it, but not for my self.

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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/6/2009 6:44:02 AM

rockspider

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

It sounds lovely - you've built a neo-pagan tree, which is, from my limited knowledge, how Christmas started out in the first place. Didn't the Christians come and stick their own celebrations on an anciently established holy day?

The Jesus birthday thing is very cute, and it makes for a charming tale for children, and nativity scenes are beautiful (I was born in Provence, where they basically invented the thing: Creche with santons. ) .

It's a lovely legend, and a wonderful reason to eat, drink, and be merry (hope I said that right :-) .

When the first missionarys was going in to northern Europe, just after 900, the birth of Jesus was not celebrated on a special day. We had the solstice (first day longer than the previous). The missionarys hijacked the day and now celebrated the birth of Jesus on it. Well knowing you wouldn't get the wikings, celts and other to not have a party, even if they now should call them self for cristians.
The cristmas tree is something much later and originates in the areas around the alps. The various German, Austrian, Czech and Swiss regions have been claiming they invented it for long, and now i see the French hopping on the bandwaggon too

It is not religious at all, but really is to make a center for the celebration. First mention of it in Denmark is about anno 1720. The original tradition of it is that it get carried in to the house in darkness when the children is asleep. It is placed in the room called the fine lounge. Something the rich had and was used on special occasions. The room was sealed off from nosey childrens eyes and decorated with the gifts hung on the tree in plain view. Furthermore the cristmas cookies and quite a lot of sweets was hung on the tree. All that stuff really only made for the celebration. I still make these and they are filled in paperhearts or other homemade containers made of colorfull glittery paper. To add the final touches candles was placed and a star of cristmas was placed on top.
Cristmas eve the family gathered in the common lounge and had a festive meal. Today roast pork with crackling and or roast duck, with red cabbage, potatoes normally boiled plus some candised in sugar. That is Denmark. Sweden and Norway have other stuff. When the dinner was over the family elder would disappear and suddenly the big doors swung open and the tree stood there in all its glory with all the candles lit. In my youth the gifts was below it. Today, with the volume, it is in a pile next to it. Due to the fact that nobody really has this locked up fine lounge traditions has changed slightly. In my home we all went shopping for the tree and all helped carry it home, and the kids did the decoration of it, in the days up to cristmas eve, as we helped mum make the cookies and the sweet. A tradition i like to pass down to my daugther today.
The whole family would enter and join hands around the tree and walk slowly around singing the hymns and cristmas songs. When the candles was burned down or so far down they had to be extinguished. The time was come for the children to attack the tree and grab their presents. After that "you ate the tree" meaning eating all the cookies and the sweets. Today you take one or two sort of out of tradition, while the presents passed around from the pile.
All this happens on the evening 24.th. Cristmas day is dead as a doornail in all of Scandinavia. Boxing day is a lunch where the the big cold table with the small warm dishes is served. Traditionally a feast of 30 different dishes served with snaps and beer. In the evening all the big moviehouses, theatres present their premieres and the nightlife is going full blast.
Calling the cristmas tree for pagan is wrong as it has no roots what so ever in pagan religions. More like a good idea coined by some central European farmer and it spread like wildfire.

< Message edited by rockspider -- 12/6/2009 6:51:14 AM >

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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/6/2009 7:15:05 AM

peppermint

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quote:

That sounds absolutely WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could see it :-)

Okay, I'll send you one next week when we get done.

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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/10/2009 10:59:56 AM

laura2161

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quote:

ORIGINAL: peppermint

quote:

That sounds absolutely WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could see it :-)

Okay, I'll send you one next week when we get done.

Looking forward to it, thanks! :-)

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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/11/2009 5:57:30 PM

barelynangel

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I usually don't decorate my house all that much, but i do put out my snowmen. I love me my snowman. I decided to take a page out of my mom's book who is Ms. creative and i am going out this weekend to the woods around here and find me a medium size branch that looks like a bare tree and will make a guy friend of mine figure out how to rig it so it stands up, and then spray paint it white. Put some lights on it and decorate with ornaments. My mom did this one year and it was really cool. Its a cheap yet interesting christmas tree to brighten up the room.

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RE: Christmas Decorations - 12/13/2009 10:48:36 AM

Toppingfrmbottom

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Daddy and I don't. And when my parents used to do the outside lights it was simple. We're not even sure we're getting a tree this year, as nobody really has any enthusiasm for it.