I hope everyone has their decorations up by now.My wife and children spent the other night putting up the tree with plenty of tinsel and lights.
We dont put any decorations on the outside of the house at all,at the moment its blowing a gale so I,m sure they would get blown away anyway.
But there are a few people around here that go mad with decorations everywhere,and more lights than Las Vegas !!
Do you put up alot of decorations in your house ?
Happy Christmas to all
RORY
We have a tree, in water in the backyard. Perhaps I will set it up midweek. At that time I’ll get out stockings, a couple of odds and ends like a stuffed snowman for the mantel, and a wooden block creche set that I bought when the kids were little and I wanted them to be able to set it up and play with it.
And that’s about it!
My condo building, which is 11 floors high, has a Christmas tree in colored lights in front, from the 10th to the 2nd floors. The strands of lights angle out to form a cone shape on the roof of the porticochere.
We also have white lights in some of the palm trees and some of those wire-mesh deer with miniature white lights under them.
The lobby has a large tree with gold bows and decorations, some greenery, and a large menorah.
The menorah is always a focal point for issues, because new residents just don’t get it that not all of the candles are lit every night. They think it’s just a big candelabra. So, the evenings alternate with somebody new climbing up on a bench to twist all the candle bulbs on, followed by somebody else muttering in frustration while climbing up on a bench to twist some of them off again. Followed by the first person going out to buy better bulbs because they keep going off.
This year, we will have to leave the decorations up until after Russian Christmas, due to upset last year that the Elf Committee jumped the gun and took down the decorations the weekend before it.
Inside, I’ll put holiday flowers on the dining room table, but that’s about it.
At work, I put out a large and very lovely poinsettia. It’s artificial, but is so realistic that every year someone tries to water it.
We have lovely holiday decorations at work, too. There used to be a gorgeous cherub-covered tree in the main lobby, until one year a maintenance worker, who was not Moslem, complained that the angels discriminated against Moslems. The Moslems protested that they never said that, and then someone else asked why all the angels were white. The angels vanished overnight, never to be seen again. Now, we have professionally done, nondenominational, ethnic-bias-free green stuff.
We no longer have “The Christmas Party,” either–it’s now the “Holidays Around the World Culture Awareness Event.” 
Most years we get a tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving (usually the last Sunday in November). This year we went to a cut-your-own place – since we put the tree up so early, we want it to be as fresh as possible. My wife and daughter trimmed it when I was off on a business trip. We do lights, ornaments, star, icicles, the whole nine yards. It looks mighty nice. The only thing is, at the cut-your-own place, the only trees they had were Douglas firs and blue spruce. We usually get a concolor fir or noble fir, as they’re both very fragrant.
We usually light a menorah, too, but we’ve been distracted this year.
And we listen to holiday music most of the time between Thanksgiving and New Years.
Wouldn’t it be so much more equable if we returned Christmas to the proper celebration that it was originally - the winter solstice. It is a physical event that all acknowledge. It has no meaning other than those fanciful notions that different people choose to foist upon it. It has nothing to do with any active religion or politics. A Yule log, an evergreen bough, a sun disk, people chanting Ra, Ra, Ra, Saturn’s rings, lots of “By Jove” and, of course, eating and drinking ones’ self senseless. Sounds like a party to me. 
djm
Yep, we Christians steal all the good pagan festivals for our own nefarious puposes. Who knows what bacchanalian fest could be next?
Now that could make a fun thread
pastorkeith
We have a sprig of some kind of evergreen stuff with little battery-powered red lights hanging from our Ganesh on the front door. Other than that, our house is the normal disaster area it always is.
We’re not Indian, but we have a lot of Indian stuff in the house. I plan to wear a salwar kameez to the company Holiday party.
That’s pretty much what I do; I just call it Christmas rather than solstice festival. It’s really an excuse to have a rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, and Christmas beer (I mean solstice beer, er – wassail).
o lambchop, i totally enjoyed your post. laughed my @#$ off. i hope that the residents of your building have a good sense of humor about the holiday antics. has no one ever stomped out the fires in the luminarios?
Careful! Too much wassail leads to "Whazza?
djm
(Sorry, CHasR, fixed.)
We traditionally put our tree up on the 21st, to light the Solstice. It won’t be the same this year though… two kids out of the house and working that day, so just Maw and Paw and the little kettle. 
WHOA djm ol buddy…that’s not a ‘CHasR’ post… 
ewww…Keith Richards…get me a can of ‘Raid’
How do the Rolling Stones know the holidays are over?
They shake Keith Richards and the needles drop off. 
currently living under my fridge:
Honey! Look what was stuck in our toilet:
on 2nd thought djm , THANKS for the opprotunity! 
The needle joke is excellent. I will be passing that one on to the unsuspecting relatives this year. Thx.
djm
I have no decoratons, it would just give the cat something else to destroy. Frankly I think he’s busy enough with my bin bags.
Mind you I do have a USB musical snowman and a USB fibre optic christmas tree on my desk at work.
wait…there’s more!
Why does a rolling stone gather no moss?
Moss is not a known hallucinogen, and is only moderately good in bed. 
I’ve semi-decorated. Not done yet, even starting two weekends ago. 
I originally was not in the mood, so just put up the smaller tree, the outside greenery and trashed the house in general dragging stuff out. This past weekend I had a burst of Christmas spirit and drug out the big tree, switched lights off the smaller tree then moved it to the morning room. My husband was worried that I’d really lost it and we were having two trees in the living room. So that took most of the day. This year our living room tree is mine! with the old big colored lights, red cellophane garland, only shiny ornaments and lots and lots of tinsel just like when I was a kid.
I got out the antique stuff- remember that tape that had pictures on it? Well, that plus old old ornaments and the like have to be arranged here and there… maybe next weekend.