Christmas decorations

[Joe Riley]

Get a leg up.....!

 

[Don Alaska]

As far as overall Christmas stuff goes, again my wife is the leader. Since we have 6 children and (so far) 18 grandchildren, and soon to begin having greatgrandchildren, it became just too expensive to buy gifts for everyone, especially with shipping rates from Alaska, so a lottery system was formed, and each of the adults buy gifts of one of their nieces, nephews or (in our case) grandchildren. That limits the expense and everyone of the children gets one additional gift. The gifts are usually limited, depending on the year, to $25 or $50. Participation is voluntary, and, although there is one family in the group who often don't want to participate, all the others find this a good solution to the problem of gifts in a growing family. Things change for us when families come here for Christmas since they bear the financial burden of the travel expenses, and we have stockings hanging for every family member who will be here, and there are additional goodies of all kinds for the people present.

Our house is not visible from any public road, so most of the outside decorations are no longer done, but there is some who can see us across our little lake, so some decoration and lights are done there.

 

[Mary Stetler]

Get a leg up.....!

My grade school friend actually bought a copy of that lamp and put it in her front window.

 

[Mary Stetler]

As far as overall Christmas stuff goes, again my wife is the leader. Since we have 6 children and (so far) 18 grandchildren, and soon to begin having greatgrandchildren, it became just too expensive to buy gifts for everyone, especially with shipping rates from Alaska, so a lottery system was formed, and each of the adults buy gifts of one of their nieces, nephews or (in our case) grandchildren. That limits the expense and everyone of the children gets one additional gift. The gifts are usually limited, depending on the year, to $25 or $50. Participation is voluntary, and, although there is one family in the group who often don't want to participate, all the others find this a good solution to the problem of gifts in a growing family. Things change for us when families come here for Christmas since they bear the financial burden of the travel expenses, and we have stockings hanging for every family member who will be here, and there are additional goodies of all kinds for the people present.

Our house is not visible from any public road, so most of the outside decorations are no longer done, but there is some who can see us across our little lake, so some decoration and lights are done there.

I used to pack a big box of gifts to sent to my out of state kids. When the shipping started costing more than the gifts, I started sending money. When they were little, ripping open surprise presents was exciting. When they hit their teens, they liked money more. My daughter and son in law sometimes get gifts if I can think of something they would really like. Otherwise $$$$

 

[Marie Mallory]

I used to pack a big box of gifts to sent to my out of state kids. When the shipping started costing more than the gifts, I started sending money. When they were little, ripping open surprise presents was exciting. When they hit their teens, they liked money more. My daughter and son in law sometimes get gifts if I can think of something they would really like. Otherwise $$$$

 

[Axel Slingerland]

Last year a storm destroyed my solar lights. I tried to splice them but the wires were hair thin and I kept breaking them before I could tape them.

When the kids were still kids, I used to buy new strings of lights the day after Christmas when the stores mark them way down rather than storing them. I used to get strings of 100 lights for a couple of bucks instead of the usual ridiculous prices they usually charge. But now I use them to light the hallway.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

When I was a kid, all the pageantry of Christmas was much more important than whatever gifts i got. My mom would go to Spokane (the closest larger town), and we would walk around outside of the big stores downtown, which had Christmas scenes in every window.
Inside the stores was even more Christmas decorations, plus some of the large department stores like the Bon Marche had a whole floor of Christmas decorations and toys, and Santa somewhere for kids to visit and get a candy cane.
Before we went home that night, Mom would drive into the best neighborhoods to see all of the house decorations, and some of them had moving parts, and they all had wonderful colored lights.

At church, we had the Christmas Pagent, where we children got to act out the nativity play, and afterwards there were paper sacks with an apple, orange, and some candies.
Sometimes, we all went Christmas caroling, which was something I totally loved !
Someone with a large truck would put straw bales in the back, and all of the adults and kids who wanted to go would bundle up (it was cold at Christmas in north Idaho !), and we would drive down the road singing carols, and stopping at the houses of elderly church members who didn’t get out much, and finally ended up at the nursing home to sing for the old people there.

 

[Marie Mallory]

When I was a kid, all the pageantry of Christmas was much more important than whatever gifts i got. My mom would go to Spokane (the closest larger town), and we would walk around outside of the big stores downtown, which had Christmas scenes in every window.
Inside the stores was even more Christmas decorations, plus some of the large department stores like the Bon Marche had a whole floor of Christmas decorations and toys, and Santa somewhere for kids to visit and get a candy cane.
Before we went home that night, Mom would drive into the best neighborhoods to see all of the house decorations, and some of them had moving parts, and they all had wonderful colored lights.

At church, we had the Christmas Pagent, where we children got to act out the nativity play, and afterwards there were paper sacks with an apple, orange, and some candies.
Sometimes, we all went Christmas caroling, which was something I totally loved !
Someone with a large truck would put straw bales in the back, and all of the adults and kids who wanted to go would bundle up (it was cold at Christmas in north Idaho !), and we would drive down the road singing carols, and stopping at the houses of elderly church members who didn’t get out much, and finally ended up at the nursing home to sing for the old people there.

Nice of yall to visit the elderly. Not much of that now.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

When I was very little we'd take a ride downtown at Christmas, someplace basically otherwise unknown to us. The main drag there that department stores faced on was well decorated in lights and such, and the store windows had those amazing Christmas toy displays with unthinkable gifts like shiny sleds and whole bicycles!

This was such an unknown that I remember asking my mother what those odd things on posts were. She said "parking meters." I asked what they were for and she said "you put in money and get meat out of them."

I recall trying to picture how a string-tied package in pink butcher paper could come from such a small thing. Yep, I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker - for years.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

The best thing I ever got for Christmas was a month of from school. Or at least that is what all of my friends and I thought at the time.

But out of all the stuff my family gave me for Christmas, the very best was things my Dad made in his wood shop. He was a master class carpenter and builder, and he always made us something cool. One year he got all these different kinds of 12"x24" exotic wood blocks, and sawed a 1/4" thick piece off of each one and laminated them all into one big block, then carved it into a Grizzly Bear. In 1992 when I moved from Hayward, California to Page, Arizona it was stolen along with everything else in the unit. I had that Bear since 1966.

 

[Mary Stetler]

When I was a kid, all the pageantry of Christmas was much more important than whatever gifts i got. My mom would go to Spokane (the closest larger town), and we would walk around outside of the big stores downtown, which had Christmas scenes in every window.
Inside the stores was even more Christmas decorations, plus some of the large department stores like the Bon Marche had a whole floor of Christmas decorations and toys, and Santa somewhere for kids to visit and get a candy cane.
Before we went home that night, Mom would drive into the best neighborhoods to see all of the house decorations, and some of them had moving parts, and they all had wonderful colored lights.

At church, we had the Christmas Pagent, where we children got to act out the nativity play, and afterwards there were paper sacks with an apple, orange, and some candies..
Sometimes, we all went Christmas caroling, which was something I totally loved !
Someone with a large truck would put straw bales in the back, and all of the adults and kids who wanted to go would bundle up (it was cold at Christmas in north Idaho !), and we would drive down the road singing carols, and stopping at the houses of elderly church members who didn’t get out much, and finally ended up at the nursing home to sing for the old people there.

That is kind of how it was in Wisconsin and probably most of the country when we were kids. Our city park by the lake has been and continues to be lit and even have a light show now (with Ai?) A few years there was destruction of decorations but not recently as one might think. Different neighborhoods do a lot of decorating still. Most are middle aged home ownwers.

 

[Shortie]

I have already seen someone with their Christmas decs up, and I feel it is way too early at the moment, even the stores are going crazy with Christmas already!

I think it is fine to decorate for Halloween now if you like to do that, we have started