The Cozy Mystery List Blog

I have to admit that I have recently been jumping the gun as far as Christmas decorating. Since our daughter gets home so rarely, I try to get the decorations up right before she arrives for Thanksgiving. Before she moved away, we would put the decorations (did I say “we“?!?) after Thanksgiving, but now I feel like she should be able to see all of the lights and ornaments (etc.) for as long as she can. (I’m not playing favorites here. Since our son lives here in town, he’s able to see them whenever he wants.)

My husband and I have been downsizing our tree since the children were both in college. We bought our first fake tree when our children were very young. It was on sale after Christmas, so we lugged it home. We got many years of use out of it. Once the children went off to college, we down-sized that tree so that it was a little smaller, and actually had the lights already on it. Since we love the colored light bulbs, it was ideal for us. (There was a time a few years ago where it seemed like every fake tree with lights on it came with white light only.)

Well, even that last tree was getting to be more than I wanted to deal with, so after donating it to Goodwill, we just bought a 4 1/2 foot tree. This one has so many colored lights on it that I almost thought of leaving it bare!

This size tree is absolutely perfect for us. It is large enough to hold all of my most cherished ornaments… the ones both of our children made throughout their lives, as well as the ones I made out of some of the special toys they played with while growing up. Things like our daughter’s mini Cabbage Patch dolls and our son’s mini Transformers.) So those are the only adornments we have on our tree… and it is beautiful! A lot of memories for all of us, especially my husband and me. (Perhaps when they are older they will see just how precious their hand-made ornaments are to us.)

Alfred thought it might be interesting to find out when we decorate for the holidays. He actually suggested this entry’s topic before Thanksgiving, but for some reason I lost track of it.

So, when do you do your decorating for the holidays?