h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I never do the tree before xmas eve, otherwise it all gets dusty and we're bored of working round it by 12th night! Last year we put it up a week early as it had to come down on boxing day.

It's only the last couple of years that I've noticed people putting decorations up on 1st Dec. I just couldn't live with all that around for so long!

gnomon, I posted a card to Canada today, so we'll see which arrives first ...

One of the houses near my office had all the lights up before the end of November.

We usually have our decorations up from 6 Dec (St Nicholas' Day) to 6 Jan. One month out of twelve But it's quite a small tree and we put it up where we won't trip over it!

Mol

It's not here yet, Mol ...

How-ever, today I did receive two hand-rolled cigars from Cuba, a packet of good licorice from Italy, ... All mailed from the general area of Dublin.

Looks like my "now with added" nickname got yikesed, so I've changed it back to the status quo ante.

I'm still not allowed to type my name in the body of a post, though.

RF

Here it's like in Germany. My father still complains about how he had to sweat every year while decorating the tree when I was on a walk with mum.

We now decorate the tree on the 23rd, because it costs less nerves, but the lights are not put on until the evening of the 24th. When I was a child we had candles, later candles and electric lights. Since I got my cat (12 years ago) there are no candles anymore.

We've always had decoration during all of December.

Sho, hubby and I can totally relate to your dislike of the faff of decorating a tree. It was usually me what did it, often just a day or two before Christmas Day, and it would take me all day to do it. By the end of the day, I was knackered.

We did consider a pre-lit tree but, as you say, often they're just ordinary lights and they aren't necessarily as you would place them. And then you have to do the baubles, the tinsel... It's still faff.

Our solution was to get a fibre-optic tree. OK, it's black, so it doesn't look anything like real, but we don't much care. The tips of the 'branches' are silver tinsel, so that gets rid of that bit of faff. The changing colours mean we don't have to bother with baubles. All we do is unpack the tree, fluff out the branches and plug it in. All told, one of the best decisions we've made on Christmas decorations.

If the Gruesomes insist on a 'proper' decorated tree, tell them to do it themselves.

It's been my job to decorate the tree since I was 10. Last year I passed it over to my daughters.

oh the Gruesomes are happy to decorate but the branch fluffing and lights are my thing because I'm just a fussy control freak at heart!

They were more than happy to do it - but next year it will be fibre-optic or pre-LEDd lights or something similar.

I spent 2 hours with decorating the tree today. My dad does the lights, I'm not tall enough.

and to all who still have to do it and don't like it

Luckily, the only tree they still had was barely over a metre tall, so decorating it tomorrow will be easy

Ours has no top. But the rest is very nice.
My father 'fixed' it by making a hole into the trunk and putting a stick into it, on the stick he put the glass top... it looks slightly strange.

I sent the tree back just before Christmas and got a nice email yesterday saying sorry I didn't like it and here's the refund. They also refunded some of the postage which was nice.

Well done !!!

Sho!!

HNY from GT/GB!!!


GT

Happy New Year!

Considering we just went and bought a fresh tree with no hassle, and I just grabbed the first box of decorations in the loft that came to hand and distributed them about the branches, we've got a rather nice display and have had compliments for it.

It stood outside for a couple of days before we brought it in,though. When we bought it, it was raining, which it continued to do for 2 days, the rain then mutated into snow and by the time I'd got the room ready to bring the tree in, you couldn't see it for snow. We knocked off most of the loose snow and stood it inside for a while, until the rest of the snow melted. That meant the floor got cleaned twice ... I'd just cleaned it before I brought it in, then had to do it all over again once the tree was dry.

No needles yet though, it's a Nordmanntanne (don't know what that is in English) with the soft, flat needles that give it a richer texture and darker colour.

As we have a wood-burning fire, disposing of the tree afterwards is no problem at all.

Happy New Year everyone.

And well done to Sho for getting some Christmas goodwill from a mail order company!

I think they call them nordmann spruce, don't they (oh - they, being the English speaking nations )

I've only ever had good experiences with online retailers, especialy when i've gone through Amazon (as I did with this one) and always leave an excellent review since they can't control if I like what I ordered or if there are defects with the actual product.

Happy new year to everyone!!