[eeevil conservative]

Just had this on my heart and wanted to share it...

[linn37]

What kind of lights will you go with,colored or white. Just kidding, Merry Christmas!

[keithtoo]

Who care where the Christmas tree came from. Anything can be redeeemed. Don't you love the stories where a brothel, or a bar is turned into a church? I do.

[big'ol_freeper]

Lunacy is alive and well.

[TomGuy]

Next, you'll be tossing the Easter Bunny and those colored eggs out the window.


Poor bunny.

[zzen01]

"Lighten up Francis"(out of "Stripes")!

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Mangers are made of wood. Wood came from a tree. But whatever makes you happy.

[Sociopathocracy]

Well, at least you're not going as far as Frank Constanza.

[HairOfTheDog]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllrightythen.

[going hot]

This is what my parents, mostly mother, arranged for every christmas, usually in the fire place during our childhood years.

[ccwoman]

My husband of 20 years and myself had decided that we would also place our gifts around our nativity. Once children started to arrived we were still placing our presents there but friends and relatives got upset about it. Twice people showed up at our house with christmas trees thinking we just couldnt afford one!! couple other times people brought small tabletop trees saying, "The kids NEED a tree".
Sorry to say we bowed to the pressure and now we have a tree each year but we absolutly will not put it up until just a few days before Christmas.

[najida]

One of the few fond memories of childhood was putting up the Christmas tree on my birthday the week before Christmas. We'd go out and cut down one of our goofy looking South Georgia pines. You haven't lived until you've tried to put ornaments on slick pine needles. ;)

And we put on those HUGE, multicolored lights with the thick cords that needed to be clipped to branches. There were nails in the walls on either side of the tree because we always needed to run thread through it to keep it from falling down. The tree skirt was literally the skirt from one of my Mom's red dresses.

We had a nativity scene too. Each year we'd buy or make, or find, another piece to add to it. So we had donkeys bigger than the stable, a John Deere hay-baler (there was a reason for that ;)), a shoebox stable that I painted in first grade, porcelain Wise Men, a Paper Mache' Mary & Joseph and a baby Jesus that was an old plastic baby doll. I think it's in that closet-that-hasn't-opened-in-10-years at my Grumpy Bachelor Brother's house. Maybe I'll go over now and yank on that door one more time.

I have my own Christmas traditions now...ornaments I buy each year that I can trace back to my leaving home and starting my own Christmas. A time and way I put out the nativity scene. My advent wreath goes in the middle of the dining room table AFTER I find candles. Sometimes they're the wrong colors and sizes, but hey...it's out!

I have specific music that I put on to play while I decorate, sometimes I make cider or hot chocolate. This year I actually put out lights and garlands on my house...the first time in my adult life! AND---This year, for my new niece, I'm buying her a dated ornament of her own, and I will each year until the day I die.

I have my own nativity scene that I bought many, many years ago. This is the first year I actually got to put it somewhere that I can see it easily. It's perfect....White, porcelain and serene. But I miss the donkey, the plastic baby Jesus and the John Deere hay-baler.

But I'm not ashamed to say that the tree is what triggers the sweetest memories.

[Larry Lucido]

We always had a house large enough to accommodate a tree and a manger.

[Larry Lucido]

I am THROWING OUT THE CHRISTMAS TREE!

By the way, so am I. In February, as usual.

[solitas]

[Texas Eagle]

Next year I am going to place our gifts in a MANGER.

Good for you. We did that for the first time this year. We've already decided that is the way we'll do it from now on.

Merry Christmas.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Wrap your presents in the lowliest of paper, too. The New York Times.

[bonfire]

I have a HUGE nativity set AND a tree. Why not have both?

(actually I have nativity sets all over my house and not just at Christmas)

[Domestic Church]

We always had a Manger centered under the tree. The gifts were placed around it.

[InvisibleChurch]

that's an interesting idea ... i remember our best Christmas tree was in 2001... we had moved back from North Carolina and were in an apartment waiting for our house to sell... we had no room for a tree so i brought home a 6 ft by 2 ft sheet of paper and we all drew and decorated a tree on it and then tacked to the wall... it's still my favorite tree after these years

[derllak]

I think it's a great idea. No one says you HAVE to have a tree. I love tree decorating myself, so my tree stays!
Your screen name and your post seem to conflict though - it's got me a bit puzzled. So are you naughty or nice? Don't lie now! (Merry Christmas, eeevil person!) Somehow that doesn't sound right...... :)