X-Mas Decorating: Too Soon?
4Christmas is easily my favorite holiday and this time every year I have a conversation with my boyfriend about when it is acceptable to begin decorating the apartment.
Personally, BAM! November 1 the tree goes up and I start decorating, but I realize others think this is too soon.
Keeping all of 2020 in mind, why should I wait to start decorating and celebrating my favorite time of the year?
Please, someone back me up!
…also comment your favorite Christmas movie. I want to compile a list and share my own 25 Days of Christmas watch list with you all very soon.
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Get out.
@RiotDemon so How The Grinch Stole Christmas is your favorite X-mas movie?
@dwightschrute
/image gif nightmare before Christmas
@RiotDemon I have never seen it… o:
@dwightschrute omfg.
/giphy GET OUT!
@RiotDemon i know i am awful. don’t terminate me plz
@dwightschrute the movie came out in 1993! Get to it already.
@RiotDemon I was born in 96!
@dwightschrute no excuses.
@dwightschrute I have socks older than you!
@macromeh HA!
Die Hard, the best Christmas movie out there
@suhsawn I love this opinion. And it’s totally a Christmas movie.
Sadly, we no longer decorate at Christmas. It just got too dangerous with the amount of cats we had at the time and just easier to not.
To give you an idea of how long it’s been since we had a tree, the last time we got a live tree for the house, we got a little North Island pine in a small container. Here’s a picture of it this morning.
I do have that little paper tree I made that I put on one of the end tables.
@lisaviolet Okay this is BADASS! You made this?! I don’t have enough brain power to even think of something this cool looking. Kudos!
@suhsawn I did. It was a test tree. I made another one and gave to my vet’s office. I like it WAY better.
It even has little bird bulbs. And the base is a lot more fun to look at.
I bought the kit here.
@lisaviolet Make the cats make up for their impact on your Christmas decor by decorating the cats. Some nice red and green hair dye (on clearance after halloween!), glitter on their scratching posts so they sparkle as they move… coin cell powered fairy lights made into a collar or harness…
@duodec you first.
@duodec @lisaviolet Yeah seriously (you first comment). Gonna send us bandaids?
@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet
Sorry, no cats. We prefer Christmas decor and dogs, though sadly we have no living packmates right now.
Could just spray viscous impingement adhesive in a strip down kitty’s back as they walk by then dust glitter and sequins from above. They might not notice for a while. The water based adhesives don’t have much odor to them and the very top of their backs is hard to get to so they won’t eat much glitter but if you’re concerned you could use Christmas colored cookie sprinkles
You could wear rubber gloves, then dip them into the dye just before picking kitty up and stroking them. Or just petting them as they walk by. Good kitty. Nice kitty. Well dyed Christmas kitty. Now go away.
@duodec @Kidsandliz @lisaviolet
Probably Photoshop:
@lisaviolet WOW THAT TREE IS HUGE
@duodec @Kidsandliz @lisaviolet @RiotDemon I love that bony shep! He looks like my blow up one!
@lisaviolet Those trees are all gorgeous - the paper ones, and the enormous real one!
@Kyeh @lisaviolet I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I suspect your North Island pine may have escaped its container.
Your paper trees are fantastic!
@Kyeh thank you.
@mehcuda67 the past couple of years, we’ve been seeing these things on the ground that look like pieces of pineapple skin.
There’s a little pointy thing on it that hurts when you step on it barefoot.
The tree has seed pods. You can actually hear them explode. Then these things, these barefeet hurting things, rain down from above.
Who knew?
@lisaviolet @mehcuda67 that is crazy!
@lisaviolet @mehcuda67 How cool! Except for your feet. @Weboh, did you see this?
@Kyeh @lisaviolet @mehcuda67 Sounds interesting. Lots of plants do real unique things. I kind of want to be there when one explodes, but not if that requires going north during a season that’s not summer.
@Kyeh @mehcuda67 @Weboh
North? Not summer…looks at thermometer by the pool, in the shade…clock doesn’t work, but the thermometer does.
It feels like it’s been summer for about eight months now. Inland San Diego county. It sure ain’t beach weather inland.
@lisaviolet @mehcuda67 @Weboh 100 degrees?? In the shade, no less?
@Kyeh @mehcuda67 @Weboh Yeah. Nice, huh?
I’ve had a weather station up for a couple of decades. On this page, you can see the readings for each month of the year (highs and lows, wind, rain, etc) at our house, on the top section. The high stuff started in April. I am so over it.
@lisaviolet @mehcuda67 @Weboh Oh, how awful. I was unhappy with our summer, with our hottest August on record, but that was 90s and not 100s.
@Kyeh @lisaviolet @mehcuda67 Yet another reason to be in Florida: It never gets to 100°. On the hottest days, rain usually comes and cools it down a few degrees. There can be sunshine when it rains, and the the water doesn’t really evaporate, so it is sticky. Still better than 100° weather.
/image come to the darkside we have cookies
@Kyeh @mehcuda67 @Weboh Yeah, but 100° temp and 12% humidity feels a lot different than 85° and 75% humidity.
We got that humidity last month. Our A/C ran for five days straight. Unheard of. I’ve lived in this house for 35 years and we’ve NEVER run it 24 hours a day. Impossible to open a window and be comfortable.
Electric rates are high in soCal, our bill doubled. It was nuts.
@lisaviolet @mehcuda67 @Weboh I wish we could get a little of that rain and humidity right now - the fires up north have gotten bad again.
Just sayin’…
@Mehrocco_Mole c’mon! I don’t need this type of negativity. Please just encourage my love of the season
@dwightschrute Jeez! Just for you…
So maybe start with a Halloween tree? Then after Halloween you can decorate it for Christmas?
/image Halloween tree
@tinamarie1974 brilliant!
@dwightschrute and I forgot…A Christmas Story
…You’ll shoot your eye out!!
@tinamarie1974 this is my dad’s favorite christmas movie. Growing up we’d have to buy a new DVD copy every year because he would play it non-stop from Nov. 1 - Dec. 31.
@dwightschrute your dad is a genius!
@tinamarie1974 don’t tell him that!
@tinamarie1974 Now that would be more up @riotdemon’s alley. Although the question for her might be: When do you take your halloween decorations down?
Personally, Christmas is one of my very most favorite times of year (even if it doesn’t snow here!!), so the decorations start showing up little by little a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and are in full force by Black Friday. And of course, I have eight inflatable reindeer for the yard.
Oh, and for the movie, though it isn’t really technically a Christmas movie, Balto! He’s special to me, as it was Christmas 2000 that something in my mind clicked, and Balto turned me into a furry. :B
@PooltoyWolf so will you be sharing pics of your inflatable christmas decor?
@PooltoyWolf I appreciate your decor schedule! I can’t imagine a Thanksgiving celebration without Christmas decor being up. …but then again, that’s the ‘normal’ I grew up with.
Adding ‘Balto!’ to the list!
@PooltoyWolf @tinamarie1974 we def need pictures
@tinamarie1974 Obviously!!
@dwightschrute It is SUCH a good movie!!
@PooltoyWolf
It is 2020 nothing makes sense this year. If some holiday decorations gives you joy and stress reduction then go ahead. Put up all the decorations at once it it helps
@CaptAmehrican I posted this above but I’ll repeat it for you.
@Mehrocco_Mole i don’t know if you are being mean on purpose or trying to be funny. It is coming across as mean however.
@CaptAmehrican @Mehrocco_Mole Seemed funny to me.
@CaptAmehrican @Mehrocco_Mole I’ve been thinking this since the pandemic began tbh…
@CaptAmehrican Just what part of this could conceivably be misconstrued as mean? I reposted this for you because it supported what you already said.
Fall decor comes out in early September. Halloween overlays it mid October to November 1 then comes down (Halloween is the one holiday, for me, that just can’t stay out after the day). In late November the fall decor starts getting replaced with winter. Thanksgiving weekend all the Christmas items come out, outdoor lights go up, etc.
Then of course Christmas decor hangs around until March or April, getting taken down and packed bit by bit by bit… we are so bad…
@duodec I try not to buy fall/halloween decor because the turnaround time for it is too short for me to give any effort. However, I make sure Christmas is down by 12/31. I have had bad luck every year it’s stayed up past new years day
@dwightschrute
Work always goes into overdrive between Thanksgiving and New Year, and stays that way through January. Its a huge PITA. We force the time to put our decor up and have to fight to keep most of our weekends. Work is not allowed to ruin our Holidays, though it tries. Taking decorations down afterwards can wait.
January is the grey sameness. The month when the bosses at work say “Holidays are over, time to get to work!” (as if we weren’t swamped through the entire season) and the music, color, scents, and sights of the holidays fade into grungy ill-annoy winter and the next holiday isn’t until the end of May.
Meh. I’ll keep my tree and sparklies and pine scented febreze diffuser up a little longer even if the HOA makes us take all the outside stuff down, thank you very much.
Fall colors in the house, candle displays and warm white fairy lights behind autumn leaf garlands leading into holly and pine garlands with evergreen colors and lights rampant… department store two foot tall Santa in a wicker sleigh full of presents with two stuffed reindeer in traces that have been part of family Christmas for more than 50 years, spotlighted on the lower stair landing against a dark backdrop with flock snow and fairy light stars, stands of display pumpkins and fall ornaments trending into blazes of crystal and jewel colors, the scent of pine in the air… the amazing food, the aroma of the mulling gluhwein and the baking… everything before January (except work) is glorious. But Fall (and to an extent Halloween) deserve their time as well.
Thanks Mom for all the years of decorating that made us all demand to do the same every year, even if its just two of us now.
@duodec @dwightschrute Your description almost justifies it.
-> 
@duodec @dwightschrute
You didn’t happen to leave your decorations up until, say, mid-March this year?
@duodec I love your attitude on this! Enjoy the holiday for as long as you and yours want to.
I hope that due to COVID things are slower for you and you’re better able to enjoy the season.
@duodec @mehcuda67 oh noo… I am not responsible for COVID
I have the same cat problem as @lisaviolet with respect to decorations and trees. With trees when I lived in a house and my kid lived at home I’d tie the tree to a hook in the wall to prevent cats from knocking it over while hanging out part way up it. Now in the apartment building I used to decorate the door and and windows but new management here, in their best imitation of Grinch, has forbidden anything on the doors or windows so that is out. Inside it is too small for a tree and the only safe place that the cats can’t get to already has an aloe plant there. I was thinking of tying some tree ornaments together and hanging them over the blades of the ceiling fan in my bedroom but Goat Cat may leap at them either from on top of the door or from on top of the 6’ cat tree. Since the bed is under the ceiling fan she’d, at least, have a safe landing. Not sure what the outcome would be for the ornaments.
For me the holidays star when the Peppermint Mocha Coffee flows.
@Targaryen for me it’s when Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew makes its return…
Not strictly a Christmas movie, but should definitely be in your 25. The 1940’s original of “You’ve Got Mail”:
/youtube Shop Around the Corner
@ybmuG I love You’ve Got Mail… I’ll have to check this out. Thanks!
Usually I put up the outside Christmas lights as I take down the Halloween decorations but don’t turn them on until Thanksgiving. This year I don’t have any Halloween up yet.
We do have lights on our back porch all year.
Technically, Bell Book and Candle takes place during Christmas, therefore it counts. And if you ignore the whole women have to change to keep a man/women give up everything they love when they fall in love narrative, and that Jimmy Stewart’s character is way too old and boring to make sense as the love interest, it’s really good! I’ve ruined the annoying parts so that if you watch it you can simply be enchanted by Kim Novak’s eyebrows and how great the sets and style of the movie are.
Nov 1st is late. If I leave town during October I come home and Christmas has exploded out. So Nov 1st is the otherwise negotiated date.
@raccoon81 finally someone who understands me…
Decorate away! Christmas is the best time of year. Celebrate it to your hearts content. Coincidentally enough, a Christmas song just came up on my randomized playlist and it didn’t even register until just now.
@zinimusprime is it Mariah Carey?
@dwightschrute lol no but that’s a good one. It was Dustin Kensrue’s Christmas album.
when I was a kid, we would put the lights up outside in between halloween and thanksgiving.
they weren’t turned on until we got home from the family thanksgiving dinner. decorations inside went up first weekend in Dec.
after Christmas, the lights outside stayed up until the first warm weekend of the new year, just not turned on after new years.
we would normally take everything down inside the first weekend after the new year.
@earlyre I like this idea. I would wait for Thanksgiving to put everything up but then there’s only a month to enjoy everything and that seems too short.
@earlyre I had a neighbor who had lights in a tree that stayed up year round. Depending on the holiday that is what kind of lights they were.
@earlyre @Kidsandliz We have a neighbor that does the same thing. I suspect they have controllable RGB LED light strings and just dial in a different color for each season.
@earlyre @mehcuda67 My old neighbor definitely didn’t have a different color dial in control. His were light purple year round. And were not LED. He’d be up in the tree a couple of times a year replacing bulbs.
Too early to even comment on not doing it.
I’m still raking fall leaves.
@romellex Ha! Move south. They haven’t even fallen here yet. Of course sadly we also don’t get all those pretty colors either