Christmas Trees

I find it intriguing how many people cannot wait to get their Christmas Trees up and decorated. I bet some are working on it right this minute!
I think it is rather early to do that.

So I will now write about our Christmas trees.
I enjoyed Charlie Brown trees, always buying the wimpiest one ever. Sometimes getting them for FREE -- a savings of $100 of the regular prices around here.
Santa use to bring the tree on Christmas Eve and decorate it so it was also a gift on Christmas day but now that the children are older, it gets put up around the 15th of December. (Hiding the tree before the 24th was getting difficult!)
I do not decorate the tree, that is the job of everyone else. I decorate the front door, the banister and the doorknobs. I also do the major clean up of tree needles when removed.

My husband and son LOVE Christmas.
My children each have small 3 foot trees (yard sale finds for $1.00 each) in their bedrooms also, all decked out.
We have another tree about 5 feet high, that sits in the middle window of the second story since we cannot put our regular Christmas tree in the living room's front windows (safety issue, radiators). We prop this one up a bit for effect.

Last year, we had a fake tree though that belonged to my mother in law.
She gave it up and got a prelit one.
My husband ended up with all the lights (thousands) also but I did not know this until he called me down the cellar and there was a light show down there that has never been removed.
Oh excuse me, the red strings were used at Halloween around the front door.
Last year's Christmas tree stayed in the living room till May 1st 2007. Our cellar walls were being finished (with the draped lights remaining!) so when that was done, we moved it down there where eternal Christmas will always be.
This year he discovered that the Christmas lights are changing over to LEDs and soon the lights that he has, will become obsolete in a few years (need to budget and watch the markdown sales).

My daughter took her tree down at a normal time.
My son's tree got put away at the end of August because he likes it so much. We just put it in the attic covered and will take it out in another month or so. I told him it had to be put away Jan 2nd 2008. I had a time cleaning the cobwebs off it without sucking off some of the ornaments then fishing for them out of the vacuum bag.

My neighbor kept her tree up a very long time also.
I know a woman who has an eternal Christmas theme going in her doll house (expensive hobby). I make her some little presents to put under the tree (box shaped recycled Styrofoam wrapped with paper and mini-bows).

One year we bought a live tree to plant however, it was a very bad winter and we had no spring and the tree suffered so we did not get to plant it. It was really very prickly.

So I guess, a fake tree is easier to maintain. I am happy that with a fake tree, the dogs nap under it on the velvet skirt and don't take drinks of water like they use to.

Christmas is coming and we shall see many vehicles with trees strapped to the top of them soon, usually a week before Thanksgiving as people visiting from distances celebrate early sometimes. Multi-tasking holidays now.

My shopping is all done and my cards are ready to mail the day after Thanksgiving.
Only thing left, is the tree, last on the list.

Happy pre-holidays to everyone!

Fun Facts:
The first National Christmas Tree was lit by President Calvin Coolidge December 24th, 1923 at the White House and has been a tradition since.
Coke-a-Cola's ad campaign with Santa brought the image of Santa Claus all around the world.