My wife has become the high priestess of Christmas decorating. I mean three Christmas trees, Crap on every horizontal surface in the formal areas and all of it stored in the attic. Fortunately, we have regular stairs that provide access rather than that damn pull down ladder thingie.

Today was my day to help. It was time to put it all back into the attic. Seven large plastic bins full of Christmas decorations up the stairs. I told her she needed to rein it back and she just laughed.

Thank God its only once a year.

RMD

My ex-wife started out the same way. Had boxes and boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations she insisted on putting up each year, including an entire Christmas village of these little ceramic houses. I attempted for several years to convince her that it wasn't worth the effort involved and she should dial it back.

Then one year, I was called away due to work (thank god) on the designated un-decorating day, and she ended up having to pack all of it up, lug all of it back into the attic, and put all of it away herself. Doing the whole thing by herself finally convinced her that the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. In subsequent years, only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the decorations were brought down and set up, while the rest collected dust in the attic.

Mine made me get on the roof to put lights on the gutters.
The older I get I'm scared to death of heights. No more for me.

Yeah, my wife is much the same way. Soon it will be time to pack it all back up and stash it in the garage rafters.

I expect to turn off the outside lights on the day after Epiphany. Could be the day the inside decorations come down, too.

All we had was a 2 foot artificial tree and a Christmas light-up T-Rex. Took me 10 seconds to toss the dinosaur back up on the top of the cabinet where it lives for 11 more months.

That sounds completely unmanageable to me. Thanks god my girlfriend feels the way I do about decorations. If it takes more than 15 minutes to set them out or put them away there are too many.

No mess of decorations for us! Just the two of us, and neither of us feel the need to decorate. Plus no storage space to keep anything like that. I’m happy looking at what others did, lol.

We just did a few strings of lights outside the house this year, and the tree. It was fun and the kids enjoyed them. I got smart and took the lights down yesterday when it was 60 degrees out...not waiting for it to dip back below zero again so I have to do it in the snow and the ice!

Just the 2 of us. No tree, no decorations. I love it! We use to do it. But now we just don't feel a need to spend the time putting them up then taking them down.

LOL, wife did four trees this year and must be 1000 ornaments between them. She loves her Christmas decorating even though it takes her many hours/multiple days. Luckily we have full unfinished basement for her holiday stuff. I don't get it but it makes her happy.

We rented a sweet cabin in the Smoky Mountains for 9 nights during the summer. On the way home we stayed a night at the Inn at Christmas Place in Pigeon Forge, which was my idea , and she just loved it.

We have 6 plastic bins (we don’t use all of them every year) a plastic wreath holder and a nylon wreath holder, a regular tree and another one the my kid has adopted for his own. The big tree has a large cardboard box almost the size of a coffin and we have a red body bag for the other tree.

Thankfully this year we only put a single ribbon on the big tree and the Gnome topper….the kids tree was just lit.

Ohh, and last year we got icicle lights for the front edge of the house…so that’s another plastic bin.

Loan keys out to the house and go away for a week and maybe some or all of it will disappear.

Unpluged the light cord and rolled it up and placed out of the way under the tree... 4ft tree sits in foyer year round out of traffic path and this makes the 4th year without removal. ............................drill sgt.

Mom and youngest sister are the same way. They have a ball decorating and throwing glitter everywhere. Several years ago I was genuinely concerned about the bushes catching fire - I pulled easily 5 strings of 300 lights from one.

Don't get me started on those stupid light up yard deer.

Dad and I are the ones who have to haul that shit up and down every year. Normally mom helps some, but she had tendon repair surgery on her foot on 12/7 and is non weight bearing for at least another month. My sisters live close enough but are always busy when it's time to empty the attic (conveniently) and my brother lives in TX so he can't help.

I used to have some fun with the decorating, but she's sucked the joy out of that over the years with the volume of crap I have to haul up and down.

The more I experience the "holiday grind" the more I yearn for simplicity.

And this isn't even considering my back issues.

I don’t mess with any of it. I’ve always said, if someone makes like an 8 foot LED cross I can stake into the front yard, to remind people of what this is really about and deliberately try to piss them off, I’d buy it. And I wish you could see it from space. But only if it can be easily disassembled and put into a small box and stored. You know, sanity?

If you believe in God, every day is Christmas. Every day you need to thank God and Christ for the day. Life is a gift, and every day is a gift. You see this first hand when someone close to you dies very early. Every single meal, every single day I express my thanks. So I don’t need a marketing holiday to do it. Just like when dating a good woman I don’t need V Day to remind me to treat her right and “special”.

Christ was rolling around helping people the mainstream community left behind. His plight was the plight of the poor. I just have a hard time with all the bullshit marketing. The fat man, lights, all of it. Bah humbug to the marketing. Glad I don’t have to deal with any of it. That shit, OP, would drive me insane. I say fuck all those lights, yard shit people put up, fuck all that shit I see like 1 in 20 or 1 in 25 around here that does the yard and what not up, where it’s all about Christ. No fatman, no reindeer, no none of that shit. I’ll stop in front of their house, make the Holy Trinity over them, and say spot fucking on when I leave.

Waiting for time to pull the tubs down from the attic myself.

One of the best things we did a couple years ago was upgrade to a skinny Balsam Hill tree. It was expensive but worth every cent!

The reason is our other tree was a huge 80lb monster that barely fit through the attic ladder opening. The new one is 20lbs and easily tossed around in its own zipper bag.

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Seven large plastic bins

Amateurs. Your rant lost all credibility at this point.

We have one tree, thank god, buncha santas, wifes into that. We take down a bunch of it Christmas day Eve, since all the festivities are over and she's had it up since before Thanksgiving.

I pull the lights down that evening outside since 1) it's cooler, 2) you can see the lights 3) I just want it done. Thank goodness for the net lights, grab a bin, fold each one up as it comes off and put it up, takes no time at all.

By the day after you have no clue Christmas was here.

Over 2,000 lights in front 750 in back plus 1 tree, 8 ceramic nativity sets, countless gnomes and stuff. Put away these occupy about 7 large plastic totes in our garage. 3 days to demobilize.
I'm tired.