Christmas decorations

You are not alone Maggiemaybe I enjoy Christmas as well, as do several other GN posters it seems. I feel for all those people who have had such sad times recently and for whom Christmas will not be a happy time.

Another Christmas lover here. We have coped in the past with the first Christmas after an expected or untimely death but the repetition of timeless Christmas traditions and customs, both comforted us and reminded us that the presence of death in life is part of the inexorable march of time and we need to accept this - and we had a good family weep for the person who would never be there again.

With you there MissAdventure.

123kittyLove Christmas, but lights all over the garden- so vulgar.

how snooty! Just as well its not compulsory then.Shame you need to look down on people who are just having fun by brightening up their houses.
Very happy you're not MY neighbour.

Some people just love Christmas and all the attendant decorations. Not all of them are to my taste, but so what! Some folk do seem so grumpy.

It’s only October. Why are you all discussing Christmas so early. Give it a rest. Or don’t you all have anything more interesting to talk about.

I'm going to try really hard to enjoy Christmas this year. I do struggle with all the hype which overwhelms me so I retreat and wish I could get away from it all. However I do love a few decorations and lights to brighten the darkness. I just wished so many folk didn't get so stressed over it all.

I love the Christmas season. For me, it begins with Advent and all the church services linked to that time. My first decoration- the advent candles- come out on the first Sunday of Advent, and then by the third week in December, the tree and decorations come out and stay up until 12th night. I love all the Christmas services, especially the Christmas morning one.
I also love all the other seasonal traditions we now have (Carol services, Christmas markets, hearing The Salvation Army playing carols and hymns in town in the run up to Christmas, mince pies, mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, soppy films, watching and reading "A Christmas Carol" to name a few).
I realise Christmas is not an easy time for some, and find it a very difficult time to get through, especially if they have lost loved ones at this time, or if it's the first Christmas without someone close to them. You are so right MOnica, many of us have been faced with what you describe, and had a weep for our those who are no longer with us, but we remember them with fondness and love.

Don't like the Christmas season.....it was at a Xmas party that I discovered my husband's (now ex) affair. He married her.....and lives in the same town. Hate playing happy families....

My young brother dropped dead from a heart attack related to alcohol on Christmas day a few years ago. We found him lying on the floor when he failed to turn up for lunch. So its never quite the same since. However I love how much December is brightened by all the lights and Christmas trees. It would be such a dark dismal month otherwise. My Christmas is very low key. Can't be doing with all the hype. I do enjoy sending a large box to my two little grandsons. And the Carol Service.

I love other peoples' decorations and lights, but find putting up my own a bit of a chore. Now that the children have all left home, and the grandkids are 17+ I feel that it is hardly worth the effort. I always go to my daughter's for Christmas.

I am in our church choir, and a community choir, though, and love all the singing and concerts at this time of year, especially midnight mass. Singing is never a chore!

We always get a real tree and put it up a few days before Xmas. It comes down a few days after Xmas though. Other decorations and window lights go up Xmas week and come down on 12th night. I love Xmas but not in October lol

I never look forward to Christmas, mainly because all the present buying and organising falls to me.
I'd rather hoped that by now I would be invited to share the day with one or other of my DC and their families. I had this lovely vision of being told to "sit down and play with children while we get the dinner ready".
Life hasn't panned out that way, though. My daughter is a single mother and my son is divorced - consequently I still play 'mum' to everyone, buying and cooking Christmas dinner for 8 or 9 people.

PS FYI, the word Santasdoes not have an apostrophe when used as a plural, only as a possesive noun, 'Santa's sack'.
I would imagine the majority of people are aware of this rule, GabriellaG, but most of us have the good manners not to point it out.

I loved Christmas as a child.
I also loved roller skating, eating worms and making 'camps' in the garden.
The novelty wore off though, as the years rolled by, that's all.

I agree Bathsheba. I was surprised at the correction.

Oh dear gabriella! Isn't it irritating when you go to the trouble of correcting a spelling mistake and your own post appears less than perfect?
Perhaps you are not aware of the convention that says it's rude to pick up the spelling/grammar errors of posters?

poor old Gabs with her virtual red pen.

This will make you weep then OP!

We celebrated Christmas in July once! And another time we celebrated it in October as a much loved relative was terminally ill and wanted one last Christmas! So stop and think - there may be a valid reason why the lights have gone up!

What’s wrong with society moaning when others put up a few decorations on their own property because they WANT to? Whether the lights are for Diwali, or if it’s a British family. And why should that matter what religion or nationality the household is? It’s not causing anyone any harm.

Did you know people have fireworks at other times of the year and not just on fireworks night! And that bonfires are not just lit on the 5th November! Isn’t it shocking that people eat Easter eggs before Easter Sunday too!

Are you being unreasonable?

In my opinion - YES! Chill out! Life’s too short to be spent moaning about trivial things.

You could easily walk past and ignore it - but maybe you would have nothing to chat about then.... If anything the decorations have brought YOU a conversation.

So maybe you should be thanking them

I think you are being a little hard on the OP suggesting she is being unreasonable. She opened up a legitimate subject for discussion. and everyone is entitled to their views.

We had one very subdued Christmas when I knew my father was dying - he did in fact die in early January - but he'd have been the very last person to want that memory to sadden future Christmases, and although he was very much loved and missed, it never has.

Winter can be cold and dark and dreary enough - I do find it hard to understand how people,object to cheerful lights, even if they are way OTT for our personal taste. There is a house we pass often where the entire front is always covered in lights, a big lit-up Father Christmas and reindeer, etc. - I would never want that for my own house but it makes me smile every time I see it.

Pearl I would entirely support any family celebration of Christmas to accommodate a particular situation that
was not in late December! It would be very churlish not to.

However, seeing homes fully decorated for the festival of Christmas or for Yule at the end of November dilutes the unique excitement and specialness of the mid-winter festivities for me!

Everyone is different, with different views.
Plenty of room for all.
It would be dull beyond belief if we all thought exactly the same.

No objection at all to the OP and differing opinions but don't like sweeping statement
saying pensioners should have more sense!
We are not one unanimous group!
Same mindset lumps us together as selfish wealthy old misers who are sitting in large valuable hoses and depriving youngsters (or even worse - that we all voted for brexit).

I knew 'Brexit' would creep in somewhere mcem, I guess that was tongue in cheek whilst sitting in your valuable hose.

I love to see the outside of other people's houses decorated for Christmas, but just don't do it myself. I live in an upstairs flat and DO put some 'stained glass effect' things in the windows.

My Christmas Tree - with gold/cream ornaments - goes up on the weekend before Christmas - prefer to have a 'final mad clean up' before it comes out of its box. I also have lots of festive candle holders with perfumed tea-lights/votives burning in them - plus some other Christmas-themed ornaments eg a festive 'miniature grandfather clock' that plays Carols on the hour and a rotating Christmas Tree that plays carols/songs. All these come out at the same time as the tree, so it takes a full weekend to get it all organised - mostly because I'm a control freak and won't let anybody else help, apart from getting OH to lie on the floor to straighten the 'tree skirt' till I'm satisfied that it's even ;-). I've definitely had enough of them by the first week in January though - lucky if they last till 6th Jan :-D.