To want a pleasing, calm, leafy, tasteful Christmas and not a nasty, flashy, dare I say a bit common, one?

[ItsAWonderfulCervix]

DH and DD2 have taken it upon themselves to put bright, flashing, coloured lights all over the tree out the front.

I had visions of a wee tree by the front door with clear, static lights.

It gets worse........

In the kitchen I have a nice dangly candle thing. I was going to entwine a bit of holly and ivy.

There are now more flashy lights around the TV.

And worse..................

I have some lovrly tasteful paper chains ready.

But there is tinsel draped around my bannistet.

Fucking Tinsel!!!!!


I could cry.

My dreams of taste and aesthetically pleasing festive decor are in tatters.

[SilverApples]

My Aspie loves the lights and the tinsel and anything shiny and sparkly.
For the past few years I have insisted that the tinsel is in his room, and on the stairs only. He has a huge bag that he festoons his room with, and spends most of the festive season being strangled by.
He has declared his intention of taking it with him when he moves out.

[HoneyDragon]

My nativity is made up of little china toddler wiseman and Mary and Joseph and angel Gabriel. It is the very height refined chic. Especially with Santas marching band and the light up train behind it.

[festivefrolics]

Cervix, how do you keep your sanity at this time of year?? We are struggling here. DD1 is Y3 & I'm thinking of keeping her off school once the plays are over because she just can't cope. DD2 is 15mo younger (NT)
& loving every minute of the build up. How do you balance the 2??

[ItsAWonderfulCervix]

I'm not coping. Neither is D2. Wine helps. I plan a dry January to let my liver recover.

[SilverApples]

DS was incredibly lucky with his school, the head told me in Y8 that if he was struggling at the end of a term and needed a break, I was to ring her and say, and she's authorise it. That possibility of escape, along with other accommodations the school made, and the extra bits at times of great disruption made life a lot easier. For everyone.
I used to watch the dial creep into the red, and be proactive with my decisions before he blew. Sometimes it meant DD did things without him.

[gordyslovesheep]

HoneyDragon I just spat wine all over my keyboard - we obviously need pictures!

[HoneyDragon]

Oh that's nothing.

Also int he lounge I have various singing animatronic tack monsters accumulated over the years.

The snowboarding singing penguin is a must see, sadly the motion sensing singing tree died last year .

[SteamWisher]

We've got a lovel tasteful tree with coloured lights (white looks cold IMO) but the DCs have, literally as they're 4&2, thrown tinsel at it so the effect is lost.

Ah well.

[gordyslovesheep]

Died you say was it a tragic accident' ?

[HoneyDragon]

gordy the circumstances were strange.

It was left unsupervised with MiL, there was a brief garbled electronic noise. Then no singing or movement, despite many battery exchanges.

She swears she had nothing to do with it.

[womblesofwestminster]

What's wrong with Disney decorations?

[feelingfuckingfestiveok]

is it bad kids have trees in their bedrooms the toddler girls has a pink one too how bad is that

[HoneyDragon]

Pink Tree


Nowt wrong with Disney Decs, I have them, and I think we've established how classy I am

[NumTumRedRum]

I'm not keen on the tat, or so I thought. Last year dd was at her dads and ds was only 5 wks so I had a tasteful co-ordinated tree with warm plain lights and selected gold and crystal well plastic really ornaments. I looked at it. It was perfect, except... What was it? Something was wrong. I posted a picture on fb. My sister commented, oh are you at mums?

[Twattyzombiebollocks]

This is why I buy all the Christmas decs in my house. Tinsel is banned after I extracted a shit smeared lurid purple piece from my dogs arse.
We only have warm white slow twinkle lights as the coloured rave style flashing ones triggered my migraines or so I claimed
The kids are allowed to decorate the tree (under strict supervision) and I then subtly alter the cluster of 49 baubles on 3 branches in the middle so that they are all nicely arranged after the kids go to bed. I've given up hanging chocolate decorations on the tree as the greedy little fuckers eat them all on the first day anyway and what the kids miss the dog eats and I end up pulling the wrappers out of her arse by the golden hanging string.
Bah humbug

[NumTumRedRum]

Needless to say, I shall now work on escaping my descent into becoming my mother and this year will be embracing the tat.

[feelingfuckingfestiveok]

ROARS at shit smeared purple piece from dogs arse - never in my fucking life can I pick up a piece o purple tinsel again after that!

[feelingfuckingfestiveok]

not that I have any

Why thanks honey its pre lit all of £5 I tihknk from the Asda, DS has a black one with blue stuff on it.

[Taffeta]

DH tried to drape some tinsel over a picture this afternoon.

I screeched the house down. It's not there anymore. he had it poking out of his back pocket courtesy of DD for half the afternoon

[Monetbyhimself]

Am going to feed this fucking PURPLE LED tree to the dog

[ZeViteVitchofCwismas]

This is why I would never allow DH and DD to do the house without me. It would be carnage.

[SilverApples]

If you get the tinsel and the flashing lights just right, you end up with a disco ball effect.
Our nativity set was enhanced overnight by a legion of Roman playmobil, complete with catapults.

[ShylaMcClaus]

I used to think that white lights were the way to go but they are soulless somehow. So I bought some Quality Street coloured lights which are lovely but we don't have enough for the tree.

Every year we remark on the sparseness then say, "ah, fuck it, the bastard tree is up now, we'll get some more lights in the sales in January" It's a tradition now.

[mammmamia]

Am laughing out loud at pulling tinsel and choc wrappers out of dogs arse! Sorry!

[dementedma]

Our tree is done.Among the timeless decoations are a leaping Jeremy Fisher in spangled tights, a sequinned snake, an angel from st Petersburg, a glitzy camp Rudolph with golden curled horns,an angel made from a silver pine cone,and a tin decoration which I stole from my parents tree and which is over 50 years old.
All very tasteless but all very special to, us