Do you remember Christmas tree tinsel?
I remember when everybody decorated their Christmas trees with tinsel. It came in a box and you would hang it on the branches to simulate icicles. My mother thought it was too messy, so we always used tinsel garland, instead.
I miss the old-fashioned Christmas trees before everyone got all over-the-top and designery with them. They had a warmth and charm that is missing today.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 87 | December 20, 2019 7:36 PM
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I miss the old plastic lighted decorations like these. I loved these as a child.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 1 | December 22, 2016 7:05 PM
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I like cheerful looking, hodge-podge Christmas trees with ornaments that have meaning. Tinsel adds to that.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | December 22, 2016 7:07 PM
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Way to fucking messy. Tried tinsel one year and then vowed never again
by Anonymous | reply 3 | December 22, 2016 7:19 PM
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It was too difficult to remove, so after Xmas, people just dragged their tinsel-laden trees to the curb, and the tinsel just looked so fuckin' sad outside in the cold light of day.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | December 22, 2016 7:20 PM
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As a kid, I thought it is incredibly funny to see the cat walking around with tinsel hanging out of his ass. As an adult I can see how a cat eating tinsel could well be fatal, but as a kid this was funny.
Two things I really miss about Christmas: one, those ornaments with the liquid in them that would bubble after the bulbs warmed up, and two, I miss the big, 2-1/2 inch colored lights that were so damn hot you'd get 2nd degree burns from touching. Sure, they consumed tons of electricity, and sure, they actually were a fire hazard, but their glow was warm and merry...not anemic and sterile like the LEDs we have today.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 5 | December 22, 2016 7:30 PM
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Too messy. Tried them once.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | December 22, 2016 7:57 PM
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My parents still use tinsel. I like it, but I don't put it on my tree because it's artificial.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | December 22, 2016 8:00 PM
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That's lametta, OP. This is tinsel.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 8 | December 22, 2016 8:10 PM
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No, that is garland. Tinsel is in the OP.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | December 22, 2016 8:15 PM
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My mom would insist the tinsel be placed on the tree one strand at a time. I wanted to just throw it at the tree by the hand full.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | December 22, 2016 9:28 PM
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To compost and recycle your tree you have to get it all off and that's really hard to do, so people don't buy it anymore.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | December 22, 2016 9:40 PM
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[quote] I miss the big, 2-1/2 inch colored lights that were so damn hot you'd get 2nd degree burns from touching. Sure, they consumed tons of electricity, and sure, they actually were a fire hazard, but their glow was warm and merry...not anemic and sterile like the LEDs we have today.
Those big old lights were dipped in paint, and that's why they had a warm glow to them. I remember the paint scratching off of a few of my mother's old lights.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | December 22, 2016 9:47 PM
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I always wanted my middle name to be "Tinsel".
by Anonymous | reply 13 | December 22, 2016 9:52 PM
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One of the best things about the movie Black Christmas is the glow of the Christmas lights. It gives the movie such nostalgic warmth. The red-lighted wreath on the front door is one of my favorite movie props of all time.
I always thought it was eerie the way the Christmas tree was wrapped in that cotton batting.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 14 | December 22, 2016 9:53 PM
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I just love the standing lamp in OP's picture.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | December 22, 2016 10:13 PM
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Your Christmas tree will look the best if Dudley the angel hangs the tinsel.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | December 22, 2016 10:23 PM
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Nothing says Christmas like sifting tinsel-woven cat poop out of the litter box!
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 17 | December 22, 2016 10:46 PM
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YES! Tinsel and these kind of ornaments.
Trees without tinsel look cheap and boring. And no plastic ornaments, ugh. And the good lights!
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 18 | December 22, 2016 10:48 PM
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Colored lights that blink make the tree, not tinsel.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | December 22, 2016 10:55 PM
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Isn't tinsel dangerous or something? Where am I getting that idea?
by Anonymous | reply 20 | December 22, 2016 11:02 PM
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Let's see; sharp metal strands probably with lead in them? Hmmm....
by Anonymous | reply 21 | December 22, 2016 11:14 PM
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My "old-school" stepdad used to get drunk and go crazy with that spray-on snow-flock shit. A beautifully-decorated tree, ruined in seconds.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 22 | December 22, 2016 11:16 PM
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Yeah, we had designer Christmas trees because my mom was that way already and I always wanted a "real" Christmas tree with tinsel. When I say 'wanted' I mean with the impassioned, unflagging desire of childhood.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | December 22, 2016 11:53 PM
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My cousins always had tinsel. The tomboy cousin would throw it on in handfuls, while my goody-goody Melissa Sue Anderson cousin would hang it one...tiny...strand at a time, with a lot of backing up and assessing the effect before hanging the next little strand.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | December 22, 2016 11:57 PM
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I remember my first artificial tree. I sat there staring at it, thankful that the sap would no longer be a problem but wondering if I would get cut sitting on it.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | December 23, 2016 12:07 AM
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My mom really loved Christmas and went all-out with the decorations, mostly things she'd made herself, like a macaroni Christmas tree spray-painted gold, done just right. With tinsel, she placed each of the many strands very carefully amidst all of the ornaments she'd lovingly curated. (No two were alike and she abhorred red and green balls). She wasn't overly frugal, but when the tree came down after New Years, she'd take the tinsel off very carefully, put it back in its box, and SAVE IT UNTIL NEXT YEAR with the rest of the decorations.
My brother and I didn't know any better; we thought that was normal behavior.
by Anonymous | reply 28 | December 23, 2016 12:10 AM
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The old kind had lead in it, OP. They still make it but it's mylar or some other plastic and doesn't hang the same. Also it gets statically charged in dry weather.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | December 23, 2016 12:10 AM
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Yes, they phased out the old, lead-based tinsel in the 1960s. When my family realized it was happening, we started doing what R28's family did -- saving it from year to year. I bought some about 20 years ago from a place that stocked Germany Christmas decorations.
When I was a kid, we used to have a second tree that was aluminum. And I recall hanging blue tinsel (the plastic kind) on that -- one strand at a time.
I loved bubble lights. We didn't have them, but our neighbor did. And, yes, the old lights had such a warm glow to them. The lights that we strung around the house were the same kind, only larger. My father would pick what seemed like the coldest day of the late fall to put those lights up.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | December 23, 2016 12:53 AM
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This great gallery of old-timey pictures of classy ladies in front of tacky trees has been making the rounds -- it seems especially Dataloungey
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 31 | December 23, 2016 12:54 AM
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I still put tinsel on my tree but it's gotten tougher and tougher to find every year. Supposedly you can't recycle the tree with tinsel on it? I don't care, a Christmas tree needs to be somewhat gaudy and tacky to be correct
by Anonymous | reply 33 | December 23, 2016 12:57 AM
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When we used it, it was called "Icicles" on the box. My family wanted to just put groups of them on the tree and then spread them out, but I preferred to do them one-by-one, carefully hanging each one to make sure it hung straight down and was not interrupted by another branch below it....
by Anonymous | reply 34 | December 23, 2016 1:03 AM
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I still put tinsel on my artificial tree. I managed to find both gold and silver tinsel and I save it in a box. It's nice to see when the tree lights are on and the house lights are low. Gives the tree that extra soft sparkle.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | December 23, 2016 1:23 AM
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This one had a classic tree my mother never would have allowed:
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 36 | December 23, 2016 2:11 AM
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When I decorated my grandmother's tree back in the day the tinsel was metallic almost like aluminum foil. As time went on it became more like shiny plastic strands. We haven't used tinsel in many years and I kinda miss it.
by Anonymous | reply 37 | December 23, 2016 2:13 AM
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I've always thought that Tinsel Garland would be a great name for a Christmas drag queen.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | December 23, 2016 2:16 AM
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I loved it.
And, yes r17, seeing the tinsel in the litter box was always a special treat.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | December 23, 2016 2:19 AM
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I wanted tinsel and begged for it every year, but my mother would say "Oh that's so trashy looking! It's the kind of thing Edna has on her tree!" - Edna being her great rival in All Things Domestic. Edna's tree was always a carnival-like conglomeration of colors and lights and miles of fluffy while garland with little red rosebud lights all along it. I thought that was gorgeous and magical. Our tree was flocked with white fake snow and decorated ONLY in green and blue ornaments.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | December 23, 2016 3:43 AM
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It makes me sad to think that all of these people are dead and rotting in their graves now.
Oh! Merry Christmas everybody!
by Anonymous | reply 41 | December 23, 2016 3:53 AM
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I love the gaudy tinsel draped Christmas trees of my childhood but I also love seeing photos of those almost stark and abstract silver aluminium trees from the 50's and 60's with their one lone ornament at the end of each branch. Can you find replicas of those aluminium trees anywhere?
by Anonymous | reply 42 | December 23, 2016 3:53 AM
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I think at least a couple of the pictures in R31 are not real women.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | December 23, 2016 3:58 AM
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I always loved the Christmas tree in "Christmas in Connecticut."
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 44 | December 23, 2016 4:05 AM
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I've always loved the huge tree in "The Man Who Came to Dinner."
Lots and lots of tinsel.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 45 | December 23, 2016 4:06 AM
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I guess white Christmas trees were a thing in the 50's and 60's? I do miss putting all that crap on the Chrstmas tree
by Anonymous | reply 46 | December 23, 2016 4:13 AM
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Thank you for posting that r31!
Say it ain't so r43.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 48 | December 23, 2016 4:40 AM
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R34 Yes I remember then being called icicles. It even said so on the box.
Fuck tinsel garland, paper chains were the shit back in the day
by Anonymous | reply 49 | December 23, 2016 4:50 AM
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I used to eat it. Between that and our Fiestaware, I'm surprised my toe can't write like a pencil. So much lead.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | December 23, 2016 4:52 AM
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Did anyone use to make cranberry and popcorn strings to wrap around the tree instead of garland? I loved doing that as a kid.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | December 23, 2016 5:00 AM
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We tried it one year, r51, but gave up because the popcorn broke every time we tried to needle through it.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | December 23, 2016 5:08 AM
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The silvery tinsel/icicles reflect the colors and make the tree seem like it has more lights on it that it actually has.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | December 23, 2016 5:18 AM
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Who puts tinsel on strand by strand? The best and most fun part of using tinsel is running around the tree and throwing it on in batches. Loved doing that!
by Anonymous | reply 55 | December 23, 2016 5:20 AM
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The good old-skool tinsel is impossible to find. Not the ancient lead tinsel, but the tinsel of the 60s/70s/80s.
At some point (in the 90s, maybe?) that stuff all disappeared and was replaced by the current stuff, which is super-narrow mylar fettuccine strands which is JUST NOT THE SAME. It looks almost the same, but doesn't hang the same, and it particularly doesn't feel the same.
The old stuff felt (and [bold]was[/bold]) so delicate...like a wwhhhissper.... (MERRY!)
by Anonymous | reply 56 | December 23, 2016 5:27 AM
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The key to popcorn strings is the needle has to go through the actual kernel head. Doofus. I loved tinsel and it made our homespun Christmas trees look great. Trying to recreate this look (I am retro) I bought actual vintage metal tinsel off eBay last year, but it wasn't the same. Now I like a really lovely and bare Frasier fir I can tuck shiny balls into close to the trunk. I've decided the tree should be the centerpiece, and it works. But it has to be a real tree.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | December 23, 2016 5:52 AM
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Remember those three horrible turn-of-the-century Christmases when "designers" decided it was tasteful to have those awful super-wide, pre-wired grosgrain sateen ribbons which ran not around, but UP the side of the tree.
Awful and frau-riffic.
I'll bet a sizable number of you old dames still do that. Stop it. It was NEVER elegant.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | December 23, 2016 6:26 AM
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Didn't Elvis have a daughter named Tinsel Marie? She was in Plan 9 from Outer Space.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | December 23, 2016 6:29 AM
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I was surprised to see that they're still selling angel hair. I always wanted it as a kid but it was forbidden because it was fiberglass. One of my earliest memories is of her sitting in the garage using turpentine to strip the color from small colored bulbs before white was widely available.
No colored bulbs
No fiberglass
No big bulbs
No tinsel
No fun
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 60 | December 23, 2016 6:54 AM
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Tara Lipinski is still using the stuff.
My mother never bought any, but we did have just about everything else mentioned here covering the tree. I looooved bubble lights...my grandma had some vintage ones that looked really different from the standard kind you could buy in the '80s.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 61 | December 23, 2016 7:26 AM
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Why is the title of the thread "Do you remember..." as if tinsel is gone? They sell it in stores every Christmas.
by Anonymous | reply 62 | December 23, 2016 7:33 AM
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Grew up with tinsel in the tree and garlands so you know i am old 😊
by Anonymous | reply 63 | December 23, 2016 8:32 AM
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didn't they used to put real candles in Xmas trees?
by Anonymous | reply 64 | December 23, 2016 8:38 AM
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Yes they did R64, they were attached by clamps that clipped onto the tree branches.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | December 23, 2016 8:58 AM
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We hope everyone uses a living tree and then plants it in the backyard after!
by Anonymous | reply 66 | December 23, 2016 9:04 AM
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I wanted to get one of those little potted trees this year but I couldn't find one.
by Anonymous | reply 67 | December 23, 2016 9:08 AM
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My father grew up in Minnesota, his parents having immigrated from Sweden. He told me that once when he was a boy their Xmas tree with real candles caught fire and his father grabbed it and threw it out in the snow. Merry Christmas.
by Anonymous | reply 68 | December 23, 2016 9:23 AM
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Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree...
...I see your steady branches
by Anonymous | reply 69 | December 23, 2016 10:32 AM
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I head that green Christmas trees are for normal people and aluminium ones are for gays.
by Anonymous | reply 70 | December 23, 2016 11:28 AM
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R40: I feel you. Mom decorated in *fruit, birds and white lights* only one year, but we also had the blue/green-only color scheme. (No red! Red is trashy! No icicles! They are a mess!!) what says Christmas like fake bananas, pears, and oranges on a tree?
R51: Eventually my begging paid off (together with encroaching middle-aged parental ennui) and I got a real tree one year - you bet I did the popcorn and cranberry strands made with clear, plastic nylon thread. Ouch. Thimble or accuracy/speed? You decide.
by Anonymous | reply 71 | December 23, 2016 4:00 PM
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I have reusable tinsel. I bought them when they first came out, so they are thin and bright. They're not chunky dark spiral tin like the more recent reusable tinsel.
I go for gaudy for Christmas because that's what my parents and grandparents did. There was no theme to their Christmas trees. Just a lot of different color glass ornaments (Shiny Brite brand), colored lights, tinsel and my grandmother would make a knitted ornament every year.. My dad used the heavy lead tinsel and reused it every year.
I still have some of the knitted ornaments my grandmother and my late aunt made. I also have Shiny Bright indents, tear drops, tornadoes and glitter "flocked" ornaments. Every year one breaks, so this year I went online to find a store that sells replacements. Well, there's no such store. Everything is big shatterproof balls and long diamond shaped ornaments now, and they are sold in round plastic bins with matching colors.
I went to ebay and holy shit! I can't believe what people are asking for old ornaments. I used to go to Harrow's after Christmas and get those ornaments for 75% off, so a whole box of them cost me $2 or $3.
Someone is asking $115 for those cheap looking clip-on bird ornaments with the white straw tails that keep falling out.
I know that Radko guy makes retro ornaments but they are all pastel matcha-match colors and I'm not into that.
by Anonymous | reply 72 | December 23, 2016 4:15 PM
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I also miss Angel Hair, which was spun glass. It gave the tree an iridescent glow while being extremely dangerous.
by Anonymous | reply 74 | December 23, 2016 4:37 PM
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I remember when bread dough ornaments were all the rage in the early '80s. My mother and I made a bunch of them one year. You had to bake them in the oven until they dried out, and then you painted and shellacked them. Looking back, they were so tacky.
by Anonymous | reply 75 | December 23, 2016 5:19 PM
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Too much is never enough.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 76 | December 23, 2016 8:20 PM
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R74, we had a tree topper that was an angel completely encircled in angel hair -- i.e., fiberglass. I hated touching that thing because no matter how careful I tried to be it was impossible not to get a few tiny shards in my fingers. Ugh.
by Anonymous | reply 77 | December 23, 2016 11:27 PM
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Reading this thread reminds me how much easier life would have been for each and every one of us gaylings if we had had the internet and known that we were not alone in the universe.
by Anonymous | reply 78 | December 23, 2016 11:38 PM
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I've always loved tinsel but we were never able to use it growing up because we always had cats and my mom said it could make them sick. As an adult I've always had cats too so no tinsel. We never had ribbons either for the same reason lol
by Anonymous | reply 80 | December 20, 2019 5:58 PM
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How many innocent wild animals never had another Merry Christmas after eating the tinsel from your discarded tree?
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 81 | December 20, 2019 5:59 PM
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I never really cared for it myself but remember it fondly. It was just something you put on your tree.
by Anonymous | reply 82 | December 20, 2019 6:05 PM
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r18 unfortunately, those delicate glass ornaments rarely made it through two seasons, at least mine never did
by Anonymous | reply 83 | December 20, 2019 6:12 PM
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R31, thank you. That was fascinating. So very Diane Arbus-y. I loved it.
by Anonymous | reply 84 | December 20, 2019 6:19 PM
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When I was a kid we always had white lights because my mom thought colored lights were tacky. Especially the blinking ones. If we went to someone’s house who had them, she’d say “Oh! How festive.”
I do love our ornaments because they all have a special meaning and provenance. Now that I’m older, I really do appreciate having them.
by Anonymous | reply 85 | December 20, 2019 6:30 PM
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OP - learn the difference between tinsel and icicles.
by Anonymous | reply 86 | December 20, 2019 6:41 PM
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I love the ornaments at Daiso
by Anonymous | reply 87 | December 20, 2019 7:36 PM
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