Christmas decorations

[fan-of-fans]

Well, it will soon be time to get those old Christmas decorations back out. What are your favorite?

Personally I've always liked the candoliers with 3-5 candles. I have seen some old ones at Habitat before but I went the other day and the ones they had right now didn't seem so great. I put the single bulb brass and white ones in my front windows. I noticed a house near me already has some 5 bulb ones in the windows. I remember one office when I was a kid had tons of them in their windows, the 5 bulb ones.

I've always been fascinated by the tinsel decorations on parking lot light poles, my local shopping center put theirs up right after Halloween, seems way too early.

Otherwise I also like the spiral Christmas trees with lights for outside, but don't have any. Plus I always wanted some of the plastic blow mold lamp posts.

Unfortunately probably won't have a big tree up this year, like the last several years. I miss getting out the old decorations for it, but did put up my little tree last year.

Whenever I get my old place, that's one of the first things I'm going to look forward to, is decorating the windows and outside with lights.

I always loved Christmas lights as a kid, I remember my dad and I laying them out on the living room floor and seeing which bulbs were out. We used to have the ones with flowers around the bulbs, all long gone now.

 

[johnrk]

Aluminum Tree

I remember as a kid 50+ years ago, how fascinated I was by those aluminum trees that had the rotating light with different colors. Apparently they're highly-prized collectors' items now. I'd love to have one, it'd fit in with my home decor.

 

[lordkenmore]

I suppose my favored decorations vary... I always liked the lights on trees, particularly flashing mini lights (that was the only type of mini light we used when I was growing up), and bubbling lights. There was a period when I think I even insisted on making sure the bubbling lights were bubbling before we opened gifts...

 

Glass balls were also something I liked--but at a distance. My mother refused to consider them because we had pets. (And some cats in earlier years apparently were quite effective at knocking stuff off the tree to play with.) So...at some point I started using glass balls. Funny thing, but I got the balls that I found boring when young (cloth covered styrofoam) for "old time's sake" from a thrift shop...and they'd probably take priority now...

 

These days, though, I don't decorate much. It's been at least a couple of years since I last decorated a tree. Somehow, I just can't get the enthusiasm--I'm alone, I won't have any guests, and the whole holiday season is now something to just survive...

 

 

 

[lordkenmore]

I also have been intrigued by aluminum trees. I've never seen one, except in photos, though.

 

I personally prefer a real tree. But I could imagine if I ever got ambitious with Christmas again and I had the space that I might have an aluminum tree as a second tree.

 

[johnrk]

Lord Kenmore-

Are you alone by choice? I assume you are, since there are so many ways not to be. I live alone at sixty-two, everybody's just plain died out in my family. Oh, there are cousins and stuff where I'd be welcome, but frankly, I'm just too lazy to fool with it.

I'm guessing you're not religious or you'd be going to Mass like I do. But then, church isn't necessarily a place to assuage loneliness anyway, unless you're clergy.

I haven't put up a tree for about five years now, since the last of my visiting relatives died off. Does it bother me? Nope. It always seemed to me that the excitement with the holidays was mainly for kids.

I don't know you, so I don't know your history. For me, I have an awful lot of holidays from the past that I can dial in to on the mental hard drive. They were great for me and who knows? Maybe in the future I'll have some more of the them.

Just don't start thinking that you're so alone that no one cares; it's not true. And you can certainly PM me on Thanksgiving or Christmas and I'll send you happy wishes!

-JohnRichard in Texas

 

[lordkenmore]

Are you alone by choice?

<a name="preview"></a>No, I'm not alone by choice on holidays. But it's the way it is.

 

I made an attempt to build up my nearly non-existent social network, but really had no success. I finally gave up. I suppose that giving up was a choice--and I have thought that maybe if I hadn't given up last June things would be better now. But then I remember how nothing was working, and I'd run out of viable options...and the whole process threatened to drive me insane. In any case, the situation is the way it is for 2017--even if I had some viable way of getting out and meeting people, it's probably too late to form any connections that would result in less bleak than usual holiday season.

 

[norgeway]

Dont feel bad

I'm 52 and don't have much family left, one Aunt and some cousins,

 

[johnrk]

I Learned Many Years Ago

that loneliness is a state of mind, not a state of body. It's so very easy to be alone and isolated in a house full of people, in a city full of people.

I've never been social just for the sake of being social. It was always the women I was with who drove my social circle, because I was never obsessed with having to have people around. I think that, for me, so much of that was because I worked with the public and was constantly around people for all of my working day. Later, when I was bumped into upper management and had a home office, it seemed I was constantly on the phone with that.

These days, so much contact I have is on the phone because of physical limitations. However, I'm not tortured if I don't have people around all that much. And I feel your pain with having that need.

I have a dear friend whose wife died a couple of years ago and his social life has died with her. He just doesn't seem to be able to get things to snap. Plus, when all of a sudden you're alone and all your friends are in couples, it gets really tough.

I still believe, whether for you or for any of us, that our interests and our activities will drive our social lives, if work doesn't. I guess I'm fortunate in that respect because I am a churchgoer and being Catholic, there's stuff we can do 24/7 if we want. Other religions, not so much. There are other interests you have, I'm sure. You have to let those move you.

Some people draw others to them like flies. I never was that way, and it sounds like you're not either. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. One thing is so very, very true--in all societies. The further you move from the average, from the most mainstream, the more you're going to be on your own, or alone. For me, I'd rather be horsewhipped than having to sit down and watch a stupid NFL or NBA game on TV; it's not my thing. I love MLB but only on radio or in person. I'm not interested in sports crap, having believed my whole life that if one likes a sport, then do it, don't watch some thug do it while you are sitting on your couch.

Again, it concerns me that you sound so very unhappy with this season coming up. There's no need for that, and you are more than welcome to PM me off of this thread if you'd like to talk more.

 

[washman]

Welcome to the club

Since dad died last year, it is just me. Or a twosome, me and the Speed Queen.

 

I rarely do much outside of work these days, sure I will put up my energy guzzling C9 lights, the yard signs, and the Noel plastic candles.  Might watch some holiday programs on the TV but that is about it.  Like the others, I have relatives but 98% of them I haven't seen in decades, literally.   But I go through the motions; believe me there is no spark or joy for me any longer.  Just put one foot in front of the other.  I still have 18 boxes of stuff from dad's house that I have yet to open. Don't know at this point if I ever will.

 

I gave up on church since my experience with the so-called Bible thumpers left me realizing that when one goes through a traumatic emotional experience there is a lot of empty words and rhetoric but precious little in the way of actual effort to console, comfort, or simply be a friend.

 

I suppose that is life, you play the hand you're dealt. It could be worse, after all I still have my health, to a point, I am gainfully employed, I pay my bills on time, live within my means, fuss over the yard, rail against eco-sanctioned appliances, still enjoy the Speed Queen.

 

[johnrk]

How Sad For You!

Where you, and I, sit in regard to our approaches to the holidays isn't a matter of how much family, or how many friends, that we have. We need look no further than some people complaining on this forum about having to spend time with family!

As for your disappointment with the "Bible thumpers", that's sad also. I've been involved in a major way with three different faiths in my life. Of course, if you have no religious beliefs, no church will satisfy you. I assume that you extended yourself in the way that you wish others had. If not, what basis did you have for complaining when others didn't extend themselves for you? We are all human, with those human foibles. Simply because we belong to one faith or another never changes our own strengths and weaknesses.

I'm so sorry that the passing of your father has left you with such a negative view of these months. My father died in 1985; I was thirty and it seems amazing that he's been gone all that time. And how I've wished so many times over the years that I could talk with him again!

My hope for you is that you will awaken one of these mornings and decide that your situation indeed doesn't cause your feelings. Even though I sit in my wheelchair writing this, I'm so damned thankful that I'm still here, and have all my marbles! Yep, I've got plenty to celebrate, even if it will be by myself. OTOH I have several friends who don't drive any more and I may pop by and see them since they are trapped at home...

 

[frigilux]

It's fairly common--though that doesn't make it any easier--to find oneself more isolated as the years progress, especially after parents/steparents and other family members. I used to have a much larger social circle. Those who have been here a long time recall when people were at my house for dinner/movie several times a week. A lot has changed in the past 7 years or so. Some friends moved away, others became busy with their children/families, a couple of them passed away and a couple have become estranged.

I'm lucky to have my sister and her two sons' families in my life.

Ben, I still have a couple of boxes of my parents' stuff that I haven't opened and the estate sale was back in 1986, so don't feel you need to rush that process. I'm glad to hear you are hanging in there. I know you were very good to your Dad and kept in close contact with him.

OK...back to Christmas decorations. I have none (save for a snowman-themed basket liner for hand towels in the bathroom) but I enjoy driving through town and seeing all the great outdoor displays on houses and in yards.

I grew up with an aluminum tree (due to allergies in the household) and fondly remember pulling each stick-like branch from its cardboard tube and sticking it into a hole in the "trunk". I really liked it, especially with the rotating color-light as shown in John's post above. We always had lights on the outside of the house, but don't recall any displays in the yard.

 

[washman]

I posted before in another thread

push came to shove, it was those of the Catholic faith that stepped up and helped me tremendously.  The rest of the lot............well I will keep it clean here but suffice it to say, they were about as useful as an elevator in an outhouse. And that is an understatement!

 

And I did get a Rudolph yard display this year too!

 

[johnrk]

Cool!

I never had any friends who actually had one of those aluminum trees. Where I used to see them was in stores--particularly the huge department stores in Houston.

You remember when flocked Christmas trees became the fad back in the 60's? Well, my father bought a flocking kit with instructions and cans of that flock 'snow'. He flocked our tree in the garage of our new home. Unfortunately, that 'snow' also stuck to all the walls in this 3-car garage, and also adhered itself to the bright red paint on his new Wheel Horse lawn tractor. For the next 15 years that tractor had a pebbled finish with little black 'worms' all over it--that flocking. My parents had, for over a decade, a white flocked tree with red lights and red ornaments. Why? Because there was a huge fire before Christmas at a Kresge's (which later became K-Mart) in Houston and they bought all this stuff at the fire sale. We had all red lights on the outside of the home, too. My relatives used to tease them that it looked like a whorehouse...

 

[artcurus]

I found a 1980's version of one these trees that was flocked. My tree is slightly different is that it's a panel tree. Meaning each the branches are actually connected to a panel.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vtg-7-Moun...as-Tree-in-Original-Box-with-Tag/253248072384

TWO WEEKS OF FARKING SCRAPING with steel wool and Windex to get that fake snow off it. One panel took TWO AND A HALF HOURS!

http://i63.tinypic.com/2namr0m.jpg

My favorite deco are actually my lights, I use 1970's lghts on my trees

 

[frigilux]

The woman next door to me decorated the little landing between our apartments. She plugs the tree in every evening around 6:00. It's very festive! There are more decorations in the shelf under the table but I didn't notice those when I took these photos last week.

Side note: The same woman lived across the street from me back in the 'hood. She sold her house about a year-and-a-half ago and moved to the apartment building. I guess we are destined to be neighbors for the rest of our lives, LOL.

 

[cuffs054]

Saw a neat dec today. Fake lampost(s) with snowman inside and a blower that makes it snow. Reminds me of Christmas 1967 when we went to uncles. My aunt and I went to Navy PX and they had a similar system for a whole tree. I was in awe. Cheap ass dad said no!