12 Days of Christmas - Day 2

[TheTwins]

~ IT'S TREE TIME ~

This is the second round in our 12 Days of Christmas Q&A Game. For more info, click here.

 

 

Today, we have four questions. Feel free to answer as many as you'd like. You will receive a point added to your account for each of these that you complete.

 

1) This year, did you have a live cut tree or artificial, and how many did you put up?

 

2) Have you ever cut your own Christmas tree (growing on your property) or had a balled-root one that later got planted in your yard?

 

3) When do you usually put your tree up and take it down?

 

4) Did you ever have a tree that just didn't fit in your space? Too tall? Too round? What did you do to fix it?

[buzz2001]

1) This year, did you have a live cut tree or artificial, and how many did you put up? artificial

 

2) Have you ever cut your own Christmas tree (growing on your property) or had a balled-root one that later got planted in your yard? never

 

3) When do you usually put your tree up and take it down? My wife puts the tree up like Disney, the day after Halloween. Down after the new year.

 

4) Did you ever have a tree that just didn't fit in your space? Too tall? Too round? What did you do to fix it? We downsized to a smaller artificial because it was getting to be too much to move up and down the stairs.

[mollyanne]

1) This year, did you have a live cut tree or artificial, and how many did you put up? Artificial - Joe's Charlie Brown Christmas Tree because we have no room LOL!

 

2) Have you ever cut your own Christmas tree (growing on your property) or had a balled-root one that later got planted in your yard? Never

 

3) When do you usually put your tree up and take it down? After Thanksgiving and down after the new year.

 

4) Did you ever have a tree that just didn't fit in your space? Too tall? Too round? What did you do to fix it? Never had this problem!

[kpop]

1) This year, did you have a live cut tree or artificial, and how many did you put up?

 

Artificial this year. We put up one tree indoors and two out in the garden so we could add more christmas lights outside. (This also makes it easier to setup and take down the lights when it's cold... just unplug the tree and bring it inside!)

 

We used to get live cut trees and I will again someday... I love the smell!

 

2) Have you ever cut your own Christmas tree (growing on your property) or had a balled-root one that later got planted in your yard?

 

As city-dwellers, this has never been something possible for us.

 

3) When do you usually put your tree up and take it down?

 

I'm usually rushing to get my tree up before Christmas, but we leave it up until mid-January

 

4) Did you ever have a tree that just didn't fit in your space? Too tall? Too round? What did you do to fix it?

 

We had a tiny "condo-sized" tree (4') for a long time, but it still took up too much floor space and it was always getting knocked over by the cats. We raised it up by putting it on an end table and this was perfect for many years before we upgraded

[sithathoriunet]

We have one artificial tree that we put up in the living room in front of the picture window.

When I was a kid we would go to a tree farm and cut down our own tree, but never one on our own property.

Our tree goes up after Thanksgiving, and usually doesn't come down until the end of January, it's even still been up for Valentine's Day once or twice, haha!

We've had a few (artificial) trees over the years that reached the ceiling, so we weren't able to put a star on top, but our tree now is just barely short enough to get the star on.

[firechief18]

1. Artificial - less fire risk.

2. Long time ago from my uncle's farm.

3. Put up weekend before Thanksgiving and take down about second week of January.

4. Too tall, left bottom third off.

[paradise]

 

1) This year, did you have a live cut tree or artificial, and how many did you put up?

Just the one. It is artificial and is one of those made with the extra space between the branches.

 

2) Have you ever cut your own Christmas tree (growing on your property) or had a balled-root one that later got planted in your yard?

No, but I’ve heard of some places that rent a live one until it’s a certain size and then it gets planted.

 

3) When do you usually put your tree up and take it down?

I try to put it up by at least the beginning of December and take it down sometime in the beginning of January.

 

4) Did you ever have a tree that just didn't fit in your space? Too tall? Too round? What did you do to fix it?

I personally haven’t, but they are some of my favorite holiday tales from my Mother and her siblings about how the tree had some sort of issue and how my Grandparents figured different ways to make it work. Examples: crooked and had to rig it to make it stay standing, weird gaps that were strategically moved or had handfuls of tinsel thrown at them to fill in the gaps.

 

@firechief18, my Father was a volunteer fireman for a time, so he was always against having a live tree in the house. He also said it was too much of risk.

 

 

[TheTwins]

1) This year, did you have a live cut tree or artificial, and how many did you put up?

We always had live trees growing up, but when we got three kitties in 2005 . . . there was some big mess with the live tree. By the next Christmas, we'd ended up with a lot more rescue cats inside, and they drank all the water we put in that tree. It died in one week. The following year, Oliver and Frodo (two of the cats) decided to climb the tree. It fell over and made a BIG mess. Ever since then, we've had artificial trees.

 

This year, we managed to put up two trees. This is the one in our living room. All of the ornaments have something to do with songbirds.

 

And this is a little tree we put up in the kitchen. Sorry it's washed out, but it's been dark here.

 

This is decorated completely in ornaments commemorating our many kitties. Sis had made a set of ornaments for Mom's birthday that had pictures of all 17 indoor kitties we've had since 2005. We lost Oliver in September (he's the first ornament), which just leaves Henry (the last ornament). So, we thought it would be fun to have a tree in memory of all of them. 

 

For the other ornaments, we used cat toys. Years ago, we'd gotten several of these Christmas stockings filled with kitty things. They came in different colors, and those were always the favorite toys! Well, we found out that we had one last one left new . . . so, we put fishing line on each toy to turn them into ornaments for the tree!

 

 

2) Have you ever cut your own Christmas tree (growing on your property) or had a balled-root one that later got planted in your yard?

We never actually did that, but we had friends who did. However . . . one year, about 25 years ago, the place where we cut our tree gave out a free pine seedling for everyone to take home and plant. We did that, but it's at the back of our two acres and has suffered considerably over the years from crop dusting of the farm next door and other farm chemicals. The tree is only about five feet tall or so. Not much of a specimen.

 

3) When do you usually put your tree up and take it down?

We usually try to do it in the first week of December. Taking it down varies. The songbird tree in the living room can stay up until March, minus the Christmas topper. It's a cheery thing in a very drab time of year. 

 

4) Did you ever have a tree that just didn't fit in your space? Too tall? Too round? What did you do to fix it?

I'm afraid so, yes. I was about fourteen and fell in love with this tree when we were out cutting. Mom and Pop said it was too big, but they let me get it. It was too big!! It took up a quarter of the Living Room and was VERY round. I can't remember how long it stayed, but I think it will not have made it very long into the New Year.

[sithathoriunet]

Love your two tree themes @TheTwins!  Jason's Grandma loved songbirds too, so we collected quite a few ornaments for her Christmas tree over the years.  She passed away last week, and Jason's aunt said that when she has a chance to go through the Christmas bins, she's going to give us those ornaments for our own tree, to remember Grandma by.

[TheTwins]

On 1/8/2024 at 4:22 PM, sithathoriunet said:

Love your two tree themes @TheTwins!  Jason's Grandma loved songbirds too, so we collected quite a few ornaments for her Christmas tree over the years.  She passed away last week, and Jason's aunt said that when she has a chance to go through the Christmas bins, she's going to give us those ornaments for our own tree, to remember Grandma by.

 

Oh, that's sweet! Sorry to hear of Grandma's passing. Our grandfather passed on December 27th. Pop just got home from Florida for the funeral. 

[sithathoriunet]

39 minutes ago, TheTwins said:

 

Oh, that's sweet! Sorry to hear of Grandma's passing. Our grandfather passed on December 27th. Pop just got home from Florida for the funeral. 

So sorry to hear about your grandpa.  I'm glad your dad was able to be there for the funeral.  

[TheTwins]

11 minutes ago, sithathoriunet said:

So sorry to hear about your grandpa.  I'm glad your dad was able to be there for the funeral.  

 

It was good. And our grandfather is much happier now. He had been praying for four years or so that God would take him, and he spent some weeks lingering at the end. He would not have wanted that to go on. He was 96 years old, actually! Gramma is about to be 94. They were married for 72 years and had been engaged for four years before that.

 

[pretty_omi]

1. We’re still getting mileage out of an artificial tree we got 8 years ago! 
 

2. Not on our own land, but my dad for a good while preferred when we’d go to a live cut tree farm.

 

3. We shoot for getting the tree up after Thanksgiving and before the 1st! We usually don’t take it down until after new years, how long after can vary haha.

 

4. surprisingly we’ve never had that problem! Even when doing live trees.

[TheTwins]

Points awarded! Reading all these is making me feel Christmas-ier than I did in December!