Are you having a Christmas tree this year?

Smallish live tree and decorating. I went without a tree and some years even no decorations from 2012 - 2019. By Christmas 2020, after most of the year housebound and isolated, I got a tree and decorated, and remembered how much I love the lights and pretty ornaments, many from my childhood, and some from my grandmother. I also plan to bake this year. It's been a while but I love how it makes the house smell.

Our tree goes up this weekend. We got the boxes of stuff out of storage, and I baked cookies all day yesterday (test run). I need a lot of Christmas this year.

I just received notification that the ornament display stand I ordered from Amazon was delivered. Jealous?

Only decorate if YOU want to. Please do not hang your hat on doing what everyone else you know is doing. If YOU like Christmas and Christmas decorations- then decorate to your comfort level I have a nice artificial tree I bought 4-5 yrs ago from Balsam Hill. It’s lovely and I love it BUT I suffer from progressive psoriatic arthritis that has made it extremely difficult to have the dexterity in my hands, wrists and fingers to put it up and take it down. I have years of accumulated expensive (for me) ornaments that I love that have to remain in storage. For the 2nd year in a row I’ll suffice with my artificial Hallmark mini tree decorated with Hallmark mini lights and ornaments. It is the epitome of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”.

I'm not doing Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. I'm fed up with being nice. I plan on sleeping in and wallowing in my newly found selfish ways.

R5: Lacey Chabert

I’m doing a Barbie pink 3 ft. tree with pink ornaments.

"Unplug the tree before you go to bed!"

"Shit!"

R8 R9 thank you for posting. You made me laugh and I needed to.

No. It's too warm here in the winter in FL, and it will never feel like "the holidays" as long as I live here.

I have two ceramic, battery-operated trees I bought from Target. The little tree is on all year long for hours a day. The bigger one only gets lit from Thanksgiving through Jan 3rd or 4th.

Before I adopted Cosmo, I bought a real tree, dragged it up the stairs, and decorated it. The last year I had a real tree, I realized I could just throw it over the balcony and drag it around front for pick up. I spent so many years dragging out of my condo and then vacumming up the needles!

I have a little 3-foot artificial tree with built-in lights. I just leave the ornaments on it and put it away when not in use.

The fire risk far outweighs any benefit to getting one. They don't even allow them in condo units here. My folks did one for years until I finally talked them into an artificial one a few years ago.

I do strategic / tasteful decor...no trees, artificial or real. Plus, I have a cat.

Are you having a Christmas tree this year up your ass?

I am!

Getting a small-ish tree this year; increasingly it feels like a chore, but I feel like if I stop doing it & won't do it again - ever. My tree does bring me joy & god knows I can use all the joy I can get

No tree. No decorations. Possibly some good foods.

[quote]I do strategic / tasteful decor

Well, smell you.

Everybody thinks that what they do is tasteful.

My mom had a little styrofoam Christmas tree (about a foot tall - just a cone really) with pins in it. You buy those silver/green/red Hershey's Kisses and pin them around the tree in concentric circles. Very nostalgic for me - I think I'll make the effort and do it this year.

I get a live one every year. I recommend ordering one from Tractor Supply. Mine last year was perfect and the only place less than 100.00.

I have not put a real tree up since 1989. I bought a really nice pre-wired artificial tree in 2014 for my office because most of my employees were papists, which has now been sitting in storage since I sold the company in 2021, so if I decide to put up a tree that will be what I use. I've promised my brother and family and/or my lesbian sister that if they come for Christmas I'll put up a tree, but the kids are adults and they all live on the other side of the country so I don't think it's going to happen.

That said, I buy those big Poinsettias at Costco to flank the front door. I put outside lights up without fail; love those and get carried away (I just got back from Target where I bought 6 strands of multi-colored lights to put on my "message" tree in the front yard. This year's theme is unity — hence the multi-colored sets. Last year my message tree was unironically blue and white to commemorate the Oct 7 Hamas attack, and I think if I put those lights on it again a Gen Z'er would set it ablaze).

I have some heirlooms and decorations that are quite festive. I met and married my Jewish hubby a long, long time ago, who's ever-so patient with all the dreck, but appreciates a lovely Menorah that we light although last year I used the wrong candles, they melted each other on the third night of Hanukkah and set off the smoke detectors... lesson learned. He just smiled when I said "What's Christmas without a little excitement?".

No, but my wife will put up Christmas lights around the apartment. It isn’t tasteful, but it is festive.

How dare you even suggest skipping Christmas decorating? You think the holidays decorate themselves? You think some tacky, pre-lit plastic monstrosity from a discount warehouse captures the essence of the season? Christmas is an art, a ceremony, a statement of human civilization. And a fake tree is not Christmas. It’s betrayal wrapped in tinsel.

A real tree is alive. It breathes life into your home. Its scent, that perfect evergreen fragrance, transforms your house into a haven of nostalgia and warmth. What does a fake tree smell like? Plastic and laziness. A real tree whispers tradition, rooted in centuries of humanity gathering in reverence, while a fake tree screams, “I couldn’t be bothered.”

The act of picking out the perfect tree - tall, proud, with a few imperfections that give it character - is the soul of Christmas preparation. Dragging it home, wrestling it into that stand, adorning it with lights and ornaments. It’s the grit, the passion, the blood, sweat, and pine needles that make Christmas real.

And don’t get me started on skipping decorations entirely. What kind of soulless barbarian refuses to drape their home in lights, wreaths, and garlands? Your partner, your neighbors, the mailman are all watching, judging. You’re not just depriving them of joy, you’re disgracing the holiday. Without decorations, your home is just another bleak, joyless space, indistinguishable from January or March. Christmas deserves more. Christmas demands more.

If you won’t put in the effort, fine. Hand over the garland and the tree stand and get out of my way. Because some of us still care. And for those who dare disrespect the sanctity of the season, remember: there are no presents under the tree if there’s no tree at all.

I have a 3' tall ceramic tree my mother used to put on the dining room buffet that I'll put out. I'm done doing any grandiose holiday decorating. I will put a wreath on the front door.

I'm a yuuuge Xmas fan but I'm skipping it this year. I'm travelling to Cambodia on Dec 26th so I won't have time to decorate my apartment (which usually takes days and totally wears me out) as well as prepare for my trip. Oh well, I guess this will make Christmas 2025 even more special for me (unless the killer dermatitis which I recently started to suffer from doesn't kill me by then).

I just bought some lovely baby poinsettias and moved them into a floral arrangement with cuttings from a hanging plant I have been sprouting. I placed them in the window and they look fabulous. No need for a live tree this year. Perhaps, my beautiful fake white one with some collected ornaments. Decorating done.

Are you decorating your ass this year too?