When you were a youngster, when did your family put up the Christmas tree?

debodun

debodun

SF VIP
Location
way upstate in New York, USA
And taken it down?

If I remember correctly, we put ours up around the second Saturday in December or whatever Saturday came between Dec 10th and 14th. It always got taken down on New Year's Day, ornaments and lights put in boxes and stashed on the cellar stairs landing shelf. We always had a real tree - sometimes bought, Sometimes my dad would get permission from a landowner to cut an evergreen. I also remember my mom making a wreath and roping out of running pine she obtained on her aunt's property. Her fingers hurt for quiet a while after manipulating the tough vines.

This was our classic front porch set-up at the house I first lived in. Lighted plastic Santa with evergreen roping and lights around the door.

Christmas front door.jpg

When my parents bought the Victorian house, then we had an artificial tree from then on for some reason. After dad passed, I sold the full-size tree and bought a 4 foot tall table top. Easier for me to decorate since that was my job then.
 

Last edited:
Generally, the first weekend of December was when we trekked into the woods to cut our tree. It was put up that same weekend and remained up until early January. Mom always wanted Noble Firs so the hunt took a bit of time and hiking until we found the perfect tree. Then the greedy clowns from Seattle found our area and started using big trucks to steal trees from the company for sale in the City which brought and end to free trees for locals personal use as well. That's when I started hating city people (and still do). 🎅
 
Llynn said:
Mom always wanted Noble Firs so the hunt took a bit of time and hiking until we found the perfect tree. Then the greedy clowns from Seattle found our area and started using big trucks to steal trees from the company for sale in the City which brought and end to free trees for locals personal use as well. That's when I started hating city people (and still do). 🎅
Click to expand...
 
Either a day or two before or after the 18th. One of my brothers and our baby sister were both born on the 18th, and when my bro turned 7, he told mom he didn't like when we decorated the tree on the same day as his birthday. Understandable.

side note: we always went to the mountains to cut our own tree, so Dad waited til the latter part of the month to be sure the tree wouldn't dry out too much by the time the 25th rolled around.
 
I can remember back in the day our father decided to buy us a real Christmas tree. He never owned a car so had to catch the bus into town where large Christmas trees were being sold. He picked one and had to have it tied up with string and then get on the bus home. When it arrived, there was much merriment as the string was undone, and it was placed into a bucket of sand with red paper around it.
The smell of that pine tree is still with me today, it was glorious and we started to decorate it. This all happened about the 2nd week of December. The sad part was when the pine needles started to fall off, and the tree had to be taken down the backyard and burnt.
 
In the house I grew up in, the people across the street had a boy the same age as I was so he was in my class. They put theirs up on Christmas eve and the day after Christmas it would be sitting outside. I asked him why they didn't leave it up longer. He said his mom didn't like that dirty thing in her house any second more then necessary. They didn't even decorate it, what would be the point if it was only inside for 36 hours.

BTW - He had a younger sister and when they got home from school, their mom would strip them immediately and put them in the bathtub while she did a load of laundry. That woman had issues.
 
Last edited:
When we were little everything happened on Christmas Eve. Our presents were laid out in nest piles under the tree and never wrapped, Santa Claus didn’t have time for that. The only wrapped presents came from grandparents.

When we got older the tree went up a weekend or two after Thanksgiving and came down on the Epiphany or soon after.
 
I should point out that for us "trekking to the woods" was only a matter of walking outside the perimeter of the logging camp. Finding Noble Firs required climbing a nearby hill to reach the elevation where they grew naturally. Then I would just carry the tree back to the cabin.
 
Nope never had one …..but we made streamers by cutting red and green crepe paper about 2 inches wide and folding it …I’m sure it had a name …it was like a honeycomb structure
 
Every tree had tinsel on it and that was removed carefully and stored before putting all the decorations away. Once the tree was down and sitting outside, there was always one ball that had tucked itself away and had to be retrieved.
 
Do not remember any Christmas trees as a kid/teenager. I should ask my older brothers if we had them or not. I dunno.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top