Do you decorate for xmas?

I wasn't going to do any decorating this year. Usually I just do a few things. The floor I live on is decorated now and my door was about the only one that was not. So I put my snowman out and plugged him in and put a few decorations and wreath on my door. That is about it for me now.
 
Bretrick said:
You no longer have your boyfriend?
Can be lonely. Does the community you live in have a group party? For those that are alone? You could go there and not be so lonely.
I stopped decorating at least 30 years ago. Have no real interest in Christmas. No family, and all my aquaintances have families.
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@Bretrick

The boyfriend has issues and has distant himself from me. I do miss him.

Yes, there are plenty of gatherings for people alone. However, going to such places will bring me down.
I volunteered for groups such as these in my younger years. Most people who go, are with someone.

Thanks for your empathy.
 
I start to decorate the day after Thanksgiving. Instead of doing it in one day, I do it over the week. I don't put out more than I want to put back up.

I rotate the decorations each year so we get to see everything that's been collected. I have a small 3' tree that I can be sat on various tables depending on the mood. The mirror behind our wood stove gets decorated with garland. I put my 100-year-old Nativity scene in the dish cupboard to protect it from the cats.

Outside isn't a lot ... wreath on the front door & smaller ones on the front porch window.
 
Only an artificial wreath on the front porch. Once in a while I get out the ceramic tree I made for my mom in the early 1970s. Much like the OP, I live alone and don't have visitors, so who's going to see anything indoors? Added to the fact that each year I have less enthusiasm for anything.
My mom used to go all out with the decorations - artificial pine roping around archways and on the stair railing. Strung lights on the front porch (guess who got to do that ladder job?). Her precious Nativity set (I had a real tough job selling that when I moved!). They were large figurines - the Wise Men's camels were a foot tall. Glazed white with light blue antiquing. No photo of that, I must have deleted it.

wreath.jpg
xmastree.jpg
 
Nope. No decoration anywhere.

The reason stems back to my childhood. Rather than a family affair, what I remember is sometimes - not every year - my mother and stepdad would go and get a real tree. My mother dictated policy on this -- it had to be real. No fake trees until I was out on my own.

So she picked out the tree. I grew up in Michigan, so there was always a fair amount of snow. Prepping the damned tree fell to me. I wanted nothing to do with it, but that didn't matter. I'd cut a couple inches off the trunk with a saw, put it in the tree stand outdoors, and then apply 3,427 cans of "flocking" to the tree (in the dark). Then drag the thing in the house and put it where she wanted it. (I forgot the part of rearranging the furniture to accommodate the tree.)

Then came the 14,532 lights and 3,247 bulbs to be hung, following by 325 packages of "icicles" to hang. Oh, and the garland. Can't forget that.

By the time it was done, it looked like a lump of lighted cheese. Cleanup of all that, of course, and then dragging the carcass out of the house in about mid-January and incurring multiple stabbings the damned dried-out mess loved to inflict.

I suppose my mother did this stuff when I was a baby and toddler, but I very well remember dealing with this crap when I was 8 or 9.

Don't get me started about wrapping gifts. I'd just as soon hand it to you in a paper bag. No need for all that frilly crap.

Bah humbug.
 
Decorations are minimal. Mostly old pottery ones that I collected over the years. DH didn’t have many of his own. He does have some pretty ornaments that I put in a large glass bowl and intersperse them among the fairy lights. It seems like we’re not going to be here on Christmas Day so I won’t do anything.
 
Eupher said:
Nope. No decoration anywhere.:)

The reason stems back to my childhood. Rather than a family affair, what I remember is sometimes - not every year - my mother and stepdad would go and get a real tree. My mother dictated policy on this -- it had to be real. No fake trees until I was out on my own.

So she picked out the tree. I grew up in Michigan, so there was always a fair amount of snow. Prepping the damned tree fell to me. I wanted nothing to do with it, but that didn't matter. I'd cut a couple inches off the trunk with a saw, put it in the tree stand outdoors, and then apply 3,427 cans of "flocking" to the tree (in the dark). Then drag the thing in the house and put it where she wanted it. (I forgot the part of rearranging the furniture to accommodate the tree.)

Then came the 14,532 lights and 3,247 bulbs to be hung, following by 325 packages of "icicles" to hang. Oh, and the garland. Can't forget that.

By the time it was done, it looked like a lump of lighted cheese. Cleanup of all that, of course, and then dragging the carcass out of the house in about mid-January and incurring multiple stabbings the damned dried-out mess loved to inflict.

I suppose my mother did this stuff when I was a baby and toddler, but I very well remember dealing with this crap when I was 8 or 9.

Don't get me started about wrapping gifts. I'd just as soon hand it to you in a paper bag. No need for all that frilly crap.

Bah humbug.
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My goodness, I'm an atheist and the holiday doesn't bother me as much as it bothers you! (Actually, it doesn't bother me at all.) Sorry you had a bad time of it. I'm not usually fond of "frilly crap" either but I think it's great that some people get enjoyment out of it; there's certainly worse things to enjoy. ;)

Happy Holidays to everyone regardless!
 
I'm just the opposite to you, @Eupher, in that when I was growing up we always had to have an artificial tree instead of a real one. We had a totally fake-looking tree (these days, artificial trees look a bit more natural) and—worse, in my opinion—a set of matched ornaments, drums and balls, with coordinating colors and patterns.

When I had my own family, we always had a real tree that was decorated with a mishmash of ornaments the kids had made, ones we'd picked up on vacations, etc. My kids and I always looked forward to decorating the tree each year; as we unwrapped each ornament we'd exclaim "Remember this one?" Of course, the stories were the same from year to year, but we didn't mind. Such fond memories!

I also had a rather extensive Christmas village of little lighted houses and figurines.

Now that all three kids are living independently and I'm in a studio apartment, I have neither tree nor village, but I have handed out to my kids "their" ornaments, and I've been parceling out the Christmas village buildings to my daughters, who want to start their own.
 
Sorry, but this just brought back a memory from 30 years ago. House at the time was close to a freeway and 2 other major streets, so thousands of cars went by every day. House also allowed me to install a large Santa, sleigh, and reindeer on the roof. They could be seen for several miles.

Several of us were at the office, working late and our COO (we had worked together for years) was asking me about it, and asked "did I mount the reindeer myself".

I replied "Well, just once, but it was after dark and I was drunk".

We all laughed so hard it hurt. Sorry.
 
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