Do Americans really decorate .....

[BeaLola]

Every room and outside at Christmas ir is it just in the cheesy Christmas films currently on Netflix and the like ? I mean poinsettias and wreaths in the kitchen and huge displays outside ? In many ways it's amazing but is it just in the films ????

@Coxspurplepippin I can try and snap some NYC ones!

The triumph of Christmas over narrow mindedness in the New World is partially thanks to the influence of German immigration to the US. Germans and citizens of the Austro Hungarian Empire, whether Catholic or Protestant, brought with them all the seasonal trappings that were familiar to them back home - trees, Christmas baking, hymns.

What I wont to know is do American kids really get forced to kill and disect animals in science class at school even if they are morally opposed or else fail high school?
@MintyFreshOne

FGS, they don't kill the worms or whatever animals they dissect. And they do a lot of dissection virtually, online, these days.

What do you mean by 'failing high school'?

I think the opening of gifts on Christmas Eve is a German, Swedish, and general Central European thing, and of course a lot of people from those places came to the US and brought their traditions with them.

We do our family gift exchange on Christmas Eve and clear the space under the tree for Santa Claus gifts which arrive mysteriously overnight.

I go to a cookie exchange hosted by a friend every year, a very festive event featuring a good deal of Glögg. My DCs look forward to devouring the haul I bring home.

Theres litrally LOADS of american films and TV shows where american high school kids are suppose to kill frogs or disect pigs, usually theres one kid complaining that its cruel and being mocked.

Link?

Oh, my oldest had a dissection in AP Biology, but they certainly didn't kill it themselves! They came packed in formalin or whatever it is. Virtual dissection is increasingly popular. You can be excused. Theirs was a foetal pig. Some places still do a cat. The AP course is supposed to be equivalent to a first year university course. There was no mammalian dissection for the regular high school biology course she took in 9th grade.

You wouldn't fail all of high school for missing one dissection though. You'd fail the assignment at worst, and as far as I know, there's pretty much always an alternative. I don't know if the College Board has specific requirements for lab work.

My DCs did the foetal pigs, all DOA. This was in honors bio in freshman year. They also dissected worms and iirc, grasshoppers.

Oh me too! Plus I'm not very artistic so to have someone style it AND put it up/take it down would be the dream 😀

American here. Of Scandinavian and German descent. We decorate the whole house. My grandparents and parents decorated the basement (cellar). One year, we decorated our DDs' dollhouse. And we open presents Christmas Eve.

Oh yeah, and we all have our own Christmas china.

What a complete crock of shit. It's a mindless trope, not the norm.

The ignorant American bashing here is absurd.

Some have HOA’s (Housing Associations) which dictate what type of decoration you can have. But mostly it’s like the UK, some do, some don’t.

What is noticeable in the UK is that trees/wreaths/ decorations are less popular each year, particularly externally . I don’t know if wreaths are getting stolen but you don’t see many these days

Yes, I did !

My ‘naice’ English village is much more OTT in terms of Christmas decorations than anywhere I lived in my 15+years in America.

Also in my experience Scandinavia, Germany and Central Europe have Christmas cookie traditions as elaborate as the American one.

America is far from perfect but it does seem that as things get worse and worse in the UK the anti-American bias on MN has become absurd

the best bit about home alone is that house as red and green wallpaper/decoration in every room and decorations in every room. I've always wanted to decorate even the bedrooms but tbh i can't even be bothered to finish the lounge 😬

It seems like by page 6, this discussion has moved on somewhat, as you're all discussing dissection but for my ha'pennorth, I live in a tip. A really fecking messy house. In order to make downstairs look nicer, I move some of the crap upstairs. However, irk me though it does to decorate a messy house, I do the odd little pool of Christmas Pretty outside of the usual living room. I put lights round an upstairs landing window and the nativity set goes on that windowsill. Sometimes I give DS1 some lights for his (tip of a) bedroom. DH and my homemade advent calendars (filled with Hotel Chocolat boozy truffles because sometimes it's the only thing that helps in December) are in our room, hanging as far out of the reach of DS2 as they can be. They look pretty festive. In the kitchen (which is a tip) I'll usually have a poinsettia or two on the windowsills (cheap in Aldi) and some coloured fairy lights plugged in on the countertop, looped round the back of countertop crap. Wreath on front and back door. Maybe something swagged over the bannisters. Big tree by the patio doors in the dining room end of the family room (where it's cold!), IKEA stars hanging up, snowflakes on the patio doors , then fairy lights in the living room end, ivy and maybe holly over pictures, and my Special Christmas Mantlepiece, which is basically every wooden German-made toy, decoration or incense smoker I possess, artfully arranged. There are toadstools, elf houses made from little sticks, and candles. I love my Special Christmas Mantle.

So while my house is not visitor-ready or even sodding reindeer-ready (not at the moment anyway) I do spread it around, it's not just the tree.

🤩🤩👍🏻👏🏻

What is noticeable in the UK is that trees/wreaths/ decorations are less popular each year, particularly externally . I don’t know if wreaths are getting stolen but you don’t see many these days

I would say the opposite where I live. everyone in my street has a wreath on the door and there are more outside lights than there used to be.

You can't generalise about the UK or the US!

Gosh this thread got a bit spicy laugh 😂
I tend to assume that people are much the same everywhere: ie some decorate and some don't.

We have a wreath and there are a few others on our road.
I love looking at the decorations in Christmas films but though it was probably like those glorious spreads shown in magazines like country living and good house keeping. Christmas porn basically.

Chevy Chase has to be responsible for a lot of the tacky nonsense, one good thing about energy prices is that its reined in some the extreme displays.

I decorate every room and I'm not American. Never do outside though.

I’m American and none of my friends decorate to the extreme. Everything you see in those movies is ridiculously overdone as far as the average household. I have a 4ft. fake tree and a few decorations in the front rooms. Nothing outside except for lights. Some people must go to the extreme though, because the stores are full of stuff.

Adding onto my post above, big outdoor characters and Christmas decorations seem to be popular. They are quite expensive and often are being stolen. I see them chained down with heavy chain and locks. 😵‍💫

@ZeldaWillTellYourFortune
Agree.

I have Christmas China too. And special Christmas morning mugs. Also a crocheted table runner in a snowflake pattern for Christmas breakfast.