Do you regularly buy new Christmas decorations?

[caperplips]

I don't mean buying a couple of new tree decorations to add to the collection each year, I mean more like deciding on a colour theme and starting fresh most years?

I know someone who redecorates her home in the latest trends on a yearly basis and then decorates her tree to 'match' each year. I am horrified and fascinated in equal measure!

We don't do this, we have been collecting our decorations since we set up home together 18 years ago and for us a huge part of Christmas is taking them out and looking at them and remembering where and when we got them and each year we add to them. I truly LOVE a lot of our decorations and cannot imagine throwing them away.

I stick loosely to a traditional slightly nordic style, lots of red and white and wood and felt and old fashioned looking baubles and when the tree is up I love nothing more than sitting with the fire lighting, fairly lights twinkling and sipping a baileys whilst admiring it all. None of it matches but I like how it looks

I just wondered how often you replace ALL your decorations or if you do?

I am waiting patiently for the FB update including many photos of my acquaintances latest colour scheme, so far we have have had all teal, all silver, all purple, all baby blue and all white -all on a white tree - each colour was a different year!

If I had loads of money I’d pay someone to deliver and dress my tree. Bliss. One less job. Even better if you could just rent it for a few weeks and they came and took it all away in January

We buy some every year (like maybe another 10 or 15). Our colour scheme is red and gold, only glass, wood, fabric or metal allowed on - basically anything except plastic. So it’s a little expensive to buy just 10 or so more! I can’t imagine how much it would cost to redo it every year, unless you were doing it with plastic multipacks of baubles.

I find the mindless waste of fresh decorations every year utterly depressing
FFS
do people not understand what we are doing to the planet

Buy well
Buy once

My oldest decoration is 80 years old and I love it
I will but this year's one in a couple of weeks
my tinsel is over 30 years old and smells of every tree its been draped around

The trees are always real
the branches go as mulch on the borders in January
and the trunk lights the Christmas Eve fire the following year

We also have ones that are almost fifty years old (inherited from my mum and gran), ones from DS’s first Chrismas, ones that DP and I bought together, ones I bought when I lived at home... I feel very fond of them all. I must admit, if I were loaded, I wouldn’t mind having another set in blues and silvers that I’d put on on alternate years!

We’ve got quite a lot of the more fragile baubles in the loft still - when DS is a bit older and less lickely to smash things, we’re going to put one tree in the orangery or maybe the library with some of the less good stuff on, and have the really really good stuff on the tree in the sitting room. They’ll still both be red and gold though.

the trunk lights the Christmas Eve fire the following year

I've never heard of that before - I don't even have an open fire - but what an absolutely lovely idea

Another one here who has a collection of tree decorations I couldn't bear to replace. Some are family heirlooms and many have been collected from travel all over the world, so each has its own little story which makes it "mine"

FWIW I really admire beautiful, colour co-ordinated trees, but I couldn't bear to do it; what about all those treasured decorations sitting in the loft, wondering why they'd been abandoned?

Puzzled
Its a sort of evolved thing - mixing Winter Solstice, Christmas, New Year, Twelfth night
we are not religious
but its a lovely way to mark the turn of the year
When the weather is good the fire is outside, otherwise its inside

Evolved is good, Talkinpeece ... religious or not, I find many of the best traditions are

Actually, I suppose there's a good answer to the old treasures/co-ordinated tree thing - depending on size of house, we could have two trees!! I have some dear friends on Florida's gulf coast, and they have a second tree in their Florida room decorated with seashells; it always looks absolutely beautiful, though maybe a bit inappropriate for rainy England ...

Our tree is colourful, that's all I care about.

My living room tree is colour coordinated but that doesn’t mean it’s impersonal, I’ve been collecting my decorations for 12 years all silver and each year the kids get a new decoration to add. last years choices were a mermaid and unicorn! I have a traditional tree in the kitchen along with all the red Christmas ornaments

I don’t agree that colour coordinated is necessarily bland or soulless though. Our tree has a really eclectic range of decorations, very few the same, in all sorts of different styles and materials - the only thing holding it together is that it’s all gold, red or natural material (so wood or felt), with some green highlights allowed too. This is last year’s tree.

No. We went with red and gold years ago and that's what it still is. Did buy a new tree a few years ago but that was because the old one was starting to look very bald. Artificial obviously.

Just a few each year
Sadly a few got smashed last year (so so annoyed) so it evens out

Nope, mine are all newbridge silver and I only get to admire them for a month a year!

I do usually get at least one new one though

I ❤️🌲

I have three trees, all with loose themes

Red, green gold,
Gold and silver
Gold and copper / bronze

All the baubles and other decorations have been collected over the years. They are a mixture of cheap ones, homemade and a some special ones .

This year my DD has her first flat and pinched a huge box of my gold and red ones, so I’ve had to replenish. I’ve discovered it’s easy to spend £40 and leave the shop with a small carrier bag .

My tree is always completely uncoordinated and haphazard. My mum works in a dept store so often gives me decorations that I think are horrific, but the kids love. I tried to sideline the naffer ones (Santas/ Rudolphs that play a tune etc) a few years ago. The kids asked where they were, I lied and said I didn’t know. Next thing I know they are busy making virtually identical replacements out of paper, pom poms and glittery pipecleaners, and they’re all over my “nice” tree, and they are delighted with the results. It kind of gave me a reality check...and so now the children get to decorate the tree completely, once I’ve put on the lights, and they love seeing the same decorations year after year.

Lovely tree SleepySofa

Thanks @S0PH1A! We’ve just put up this years today but it’s not quite finished yet.

No, it would be insane and terribly bad for the environment. Ours are an eclectic mix dating back a couple of generations in some cases, plus a couple bought at school fairs etc, made at nursery.

God, no. It's utterly wasteful to do that. All that shiny non recyclable plastic being ditched for the sake of a brand new showy colour scheme each year.

Exactly, @PickAChew. And what @Talkinpeece said. The thought of all that unnecessary landfill makes me want to cry.

Plus the tradition of keeping and adding to the decs by just one or two each year is lovely.

Good gracious no. I thought only shops had ‘themed’ trees. I can’t imagine anything less Christmassy than teal and magenta plastic co-ordinating decorations. Just ghastly.

Aren’t tree decorations about memories, the ones the children made, the ones you bought on foreign holidays, grannies ones, the ones from special days out. Each one creating a warm feeling as you pull it out of wrapping paper.

Other than that I do homemade wreaths, garlands, flowers in red amongst holly, willow and mistletoe with tiny lights.

I suspect I'm probably guilty of this!

I have in the last 3 years bought whole new lots of decorations because we moved into a house and I cannot find a way to make my living room homely or how I like so lots of furniture changes, colour schemes (still not quite settled!) I do buy and sell second hand tho and I'm an upcycler so not too much expense.

But in my defence a lot of my decorations are linen/burlap so quite easy to add a few cheap baubles and change the look. And I do use my old ones for example I used them for decorations on the outside of the house and we are doing a tree in the dining room using last years colours.

I think I have a problem

Each to their own. We are traditional and have the home made, slowly built sentimental collection but I can see the appeal of change (if you reuse etc and don't contribute to landfill). Much as I like the tradition and the kids memories etc, it is a bit bloody repetitive sometimes!! I do struggle a bit with how many bereavements we've had and sometimes the tree can feel like it's half tree, half shrine to all the dead folk. I'm in my 40s and I can well imagine wanting a change in future.

I don't buy new tree ornaments as they are all different colours and slightly quirky but I have changed the lights a fair few times. We had coloured, then I bought blue, then pink then last year a champagne colour led ones.

I'd never had a real tree until DP and I moved in together. We went out and spent a small fortune on lots of silver decorations. 12 years later our tree theme is still silver (well silver, black and white). We still have all our "posh" decorations.

We do a smaller tree upstairs for the kids and anything goes. We tend to have a few nice decorations, interspersed with cheap shit and I replace the cheap stuff as and when its beyond useable.

Was in Paperchase recently and I've bought the kids a unicorn and a blue, glittery hammerhead shark ornament (the baby has a "my first Christmas 2018" bauble, as did the other two for their first Xmas)

My 6yo is going to be so excited about this decoration