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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to hate "stylish" xmas trees!

65 replies

JJ17 · 07/12/2010 18:10

Our tree looks like shit but has every piece of rubbish that my DS1 and DS2 and even I have ever made at school.

I love it, it is filled with milk bottle tops, pipe cleaners, fragile clay stars.

I just love it, I feel that it tells a family story.

I hate trees that are fancy pantsy and "all white" or just "stylish".

I love my tree!

OP posts:

QueeferSantaland · 07/12/2010 23:05

Two or three tree home here.

My "nice" one and the one the DH and children do.

I am finding though I am prefering the one with the DCs home-made decs.

TheDuckSaysMoo · 07/12/2010 23:11

YANBU. I love my mismatching tree with a family story behind each item.

Maryz - that's what I do . I have even invented the tree fairys that come and put the tree up while DS is sleeping. The alternative would be broken decorations and electrocution without a doubt.

I love the Buzz Lightyear idea!

QueenOfTheNightBeforeChristmas · 07/12/2010 23:20

Lol. As lovely as a three tree home sounds, I never want to be responsible for that much housework even if I only had to pay for it!

A big random tree in the front room and a small collection of light up, sparkly twiggy stuff in a big vase in the back room window will do me well enough.

LolaBellsAllTheWay · 07/12/2010 23:41

I am still a bit shaky about losing the control over the christmas tree this year. DD1 is 2.3yo and VERY excited about christmas. I have replaced my white lights with coloured ones. No ornaments match as she chose them and the tree is missing something. I might actually have to but...tinsel .

I long for the time when we have a house that is big enough for two trees.

But then its all about the kids really isn't it. [says lola whilst wiping the sweat from forehead}

And before anyone says she is also being taught about the true meaning of christmas. If only I can get her to say baby Jesus instead of Baby Jonas and mass instead of mask!

FWIW my mum has never had a stylish tree and her house, even now, is always like santa's grotto and I LOVE IT!!!

MoreCrackThanHarlem · 07/12/2010 23:42

Yanbu

I don't own a full set of baubles, just a v large collection of decorations with no theme or colour scheme. Glittery purple ballerina, Sleeping Beauty in a snowglobe from Disneyland, baubles with family names on, a dough angel, a gold ballet shoe etc etc

No tinsel though- just strings of gold beads and tons of lametta. And white lights- not keen on coloured.
It's gorgeous, imo
And dd and I go shopping each November for a new decoration, as soon as Christmas World opens at the garden centre.

Themes and schemes for a shopping centre tree,imo, not a family home.

stupidgreatgrinonmyface · 08/12/2010 01:00

I love our tree and its 'memories' far more than I could ever imagine loving a 'themed' tree. Every year of our marriage, we have bought at least one 'special' tree decoration. We have also bought a tree decoration home from every holiday we have taken. When they were young, our DCs contributed their 'works of art' as well. Over the years we have amassed a truly eclectic set of tree decorations: every colour of the rainbow, every possible 'theme' you could imagine as well as some you wouldn't. Every year when we dress the tree, as we unwrap each decoration somebody has a 'do you remember when...' comment. After 30 odd years, our tree is a true memory tree and our DCs have even begun to lay claim to their favourite decorations as and when they become 'available' IYSWIM. Not that we expect that to happen soon, but it is a measure of how much the memories mean to them. I can't imagine anyone ever getting that sentimental about their gold and luminous green ( or whatever colours fashion dictates) glass baubles, can you?

Morloth · 08/12/2010 01:07

I like mine all posh and organised, but it does have the decorations DS1 has made over the years on it, and we buy a tree ornament now when we go travelling instead of other tourist crap souvenirs. It doesn't have to be either or you know.

I hate tinsel though, vile stuff that drops everywhere, none of that shit on my tree.

As I said on the other thread, DS1 helps to decorate it and when he is in bed that night I tidy it up, he doesn't notice but I get all twitchy if it isn't exactly right.

YANBU to not want a stylish one, but YABU if you think everyone should want a messy one.

MrManager · 08/12/2010 01:17

YANBU

I've seen loads of trees with blue tinsel and white lights or silver tinsel and blue lights.
Christmas trees should be green with red and gold tinsel/lights.

Christmas should be Gryffindor colours, not Ravenclaw colours!

kingazanzi · 08/12/2010 01:20

Love my stylish tree. Kids are not allowed to touch it.

kingazanzi · 08/12/2010 01:20

that was a joke by the way.

Adair · 08/12/2010 07:06

kingazanzi.

Agree it is horses for courses and we all have different tastes. Also, what we grew up with as children prob accounts for what makes christmas 'christmas' to us. I have never quite got over finding out on MN that some people don't do tinsel because they think it is tacky though!

Caboodle · 08/12/2010 07:42

Tinsel is tacky....but that is the point - tacky is good DH wants to put up those shiny foil decorations we used to have as kids in the 70s, the ones that go on the ceiling.....might just let him too. Now that IS tacky.

Adair · 08/12/2010 07:47

have had those up every year! didnt realise they were frowned on too...

MamaVoo · 08/12/2010 07:57

I'd forgotten about the shiny foil decorations that go on the ceiling. Once my dad had finished you could hardly see any ceiling.

I do love my stylish tree. Mainly because there is nothing stylish about me or my house so it's my little bit of rebellion against all the tat. When DS starts making decorations I think we have space for the two tree option.

marriednotmulled · 08/12/2010 07:58

I love them all. They are expressions of individual taste/choice.

My stylish tree has evolved from the tinseled multicoloured wonder I had when the DCs were young into glittering silver, clear glass and white and I adore it. The tree has to be green though. It's not about fashion, just what I like.

There's a few old decorations that I've had for donkey's years. The tinsel and lametta had to go

But nestling in the centre is the non matching gold cardboard angel from my first tree 25 years ago.

You can have it both ways IMO.

theevildead2 · 08/12/2010 08:10

I think stylish trees should be in the "things people are posh but are really chavvy" or whatever it is called thread over in chat. They just look a bit sad. The only excuse is when you are first starting out and buy a box set or something

theevildead2 · 08/12/2010 08:10

Things people think are posh.

GooseyLoosey · 08/12/2010 08:11

I think mine is the stylish variety - the ornaments are red and gold and no home-made ones. However, the ornaments are the ones that were on the tree when I was a child (although as they are glass, the numbers are diminishing and they have had to be supplemented).

I have an advent calendar that was made for me 40 years ago. It hangs on the back of a door and I tie all of the things that the kids make to it.

We have a small tree brougth back from Beligium in ww2 by my grandfather and a sash brought with my family when they emigrated in 1918.

Although my tree my not set out the history of family christmases, my house does.

whatdoiknowanyway · 08/12/2010 08:26

My DC get a Christmas bauble in their stocking every year with their name and the year on it. The tree is now full of wildly different baubles each with memories of a different Christmas.

SixtyFootDoll · 08/12/2010 08:34

totally agree
we have a real tree every year

and the same old decs come out - with a few new additions, but most have a story behind them, ie a Tellytubby ddec that i bought for DS when he was a toddler, a Mickey Mouse one from out Eurodisney trip, some really old ones from DH and ours first Xmas together.

Could never throw any away!

MamaVoo · 08/12/2010 09:15

I don't think my stylish tree is posh - posh people generally have old threadbare stuff don't they? I'll concede that it might be chavvy, but it's pretty too :)

dinkystinky · 08/12/2010 09:17

I love christmas trees that are decorated any old way, especially by kiddies.

Sadly DH and MIL are christmas tree bauble nazis so I never get to have christmas with a tree the way I'd like it to be ... Ho hum

knitpicker · 08/12/2010 09:32

Lola - my DS used to say baby cheeses.
I wish I could afford to be stylish but think I would probably just buy a more expensive mish-mash of ornaments

kreecherlivesupstairs · 08/12/2010 09:46

This year ours looks a lot better than in previous years. DD had realised that decorations should be S-P-R-E-A-D out over the tree rather than put into a little area in one place.
It is rather overloaded though, and we have two carrier bags full of stuff that need to go to the recycling place.

Jins · 08/12/2010 09:50

Two trees here as well.

No tinsel on either of them. I can't bear tinsel :(

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