My daughter just returned from her holiday. She spent the last week in New York and visited the Christmas Cottage on 7th Avenue. She is at least as addicted to Christmas as I am. She brought the 2 doves of friendship we all know from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

From now on we will both have a dove in our trees!

My local thrift stores went up on their prices and I prefer not to shop amazon. I would love to find a pink christmas tree or table top ceramic christmas tree. Any ideas where to find them. Has anyone purchased things like this on temu？

Hello! For people who have experience with Costco pre lit trees what do u think ? Do they last ? How many years did you use them ?

Thanks 🙏

I'm looking for some Christmas songs for my Spotify playlist "alternativ jul" I have songs and music like "cry Christmas by mother mother" "krampus by feuerswanz" and lastly "jul det cool by MC Einar" if you have a couple of suggestions I will happily accept them and I will see if I already have one and if not I will add them to my playlist it's a little under two hours long now but I'm trying to get it to three or four hours (which is the average time I spend on decorating the tree) it can be any language I have songs in Danish English and German as shown in my examples

I’m old-skool. And old.

TL;DR: Color vs. white Christmas lights. Yada, yada, yada. Color wins!

“Back in my day,” I don’t remember white lights on a Christmas tree. Everywhere I went, trees were in color. Bright, colorful lights everywhere. The family tree. The little trees in our bedrooms. My grandparents. Extended family. All multicolor.

Even when we made the cultural changeover from C7 bulbs to mini lights, Christmas was still Technicolor.

Honestly, the only questionable thing was blinking lights. Hated ’em.

I can still remember a friend’s house at Christmas. The saddest live tree, sparsely strung with one strand of blinking mini lights. Twinkling didn’t exist then. Just plain old ON. OFF. ON. OFF.

The saddest.

My mother didn’t like blinking lights either, and she made sure to pass that opinion along to an impressionable young me. Apparently it stuck.

I still dislike blinking Christmas lights. Now, one strategically placed blinking bulb among a sea of steady color can be interesting. But a whole strand? Or worse, a whole tree?

Nope.

Then I went into retail display, where suddenly everything was white lights. Trees. Wreaths. Garlands. Everywhere.

And I understood it.

It was elegant. It was simple. It was beautiful.

But at home?

Color.

For over 40 years we had a live tree covered in multicolor mini lights.

I tried white lights a few times. The year my daughter was born. The year my father died. But I always came back to color.

The nostalgia. The memories. Those nights with the room dark and the tree and garlands ablaze.

Funny enough, I always preferred white lights outside. Framing the house. Covering the bushes. Wreaths and garlands around the porch. There’s something about crisp white lights against the darkness of a winter night.

And when it snowed! The house covered in snow, with the lights glowing through that blanket of white. I used to wish I was a neighbor just so I could stare at my house from across the street.

But once you came through the front door, Christmas was in color.

When I retired, sold the house, and moved into an apartment, live trees were no longer allowed. So it was finally time for a good artificial tree.

I bought a beautiful pre-lit Balsam Hill.

With white lights.

At the time, finding a really nice pre-lit tree with colored lights was surprisingly difficult.

And honestly, I wanted pre-lit because decorating a tree had become harder. I used to spend an entire day just putting on the lights.

After years of decorating trees professionally, I was very particular. Every branch had to be wrapped. No loose wires. No cords hanging everywhere.

Martha Stewart perfect. OCD much?

Try wiring a nine-foot live evergreen that way. Then add another two days to decorate it.

A younger man’s project.

So I lived with the pre-lit white lights for a number of years.

And cursed that tree every Christmas.

Then I stumbled across True-Tone and their glorious C7 bulbs.

They cost a small fortune. I bought them anyway.

And yes, I wrapped every branch the way I always had.

And they worked their magic.

Suddenly I was looking at the Christmas trees of my childhood again.

Big glowing C7 bulbs. Red. Blue. Green. Orange. Yellow.

Color.

I remembered the little tree in my bedroom when I was a kid. I would lie in bed at night with the room dark and just stare at it, watching those colors glow against the walls.

Warm. Bright. Magical.

Decades later, I realized that was the feeling I’d been trying to recreate all along.

I guess this was supposed to be a color-vs.-white-lights post.

But apparently it turned into a trip down memory lane.

Photos:
Left: Present day — Balsam Hill tree with True-Tone C7 lights
Right: Then — live tree with multicolor mini lights

I need help from people who actually care about this stuff, and I don't know where else to ask.

Honest context first so nobody feels tricked: I'm making a small run of holiday clothing this fall. Not trying to promote it and there is genuinely nothing to buy or click (it hasn't even been "born" yet, which is what brings me here). I asked the mods before posting ~ I just need eyes that aren't mine.

T H E P R O B L E M

I have room for four prints, three are already locked. I'm torn between these two for the final slot. I've stared at them so long they've started looking the same, and I'm at the point where I have to commit.

I've asked friends and family and they've been very sweet, but a lot of them put the tree up around the 20th and have it down by the 26th. That's fine, they're just not who these are for. You are. Almost nobody I know in real life has strong feelings about Christmas. Everyone here does.

❓ T H E A S K

Which would you keep - Christmas Cream or Winter Garden?

Whether you participate or not, thank you for getting this far and I'm happy to be a part of this sub leading up to the best time of the year!!

So I'm trying to compile a list of 100 Christmas songs. Not artists. Just songs. Like "Jingle Bells" "Silent Night" "The Holy and the Ivy" (There's 3). Also songs with multiple versions out (So not like "When The River Meets The Sea" from Emmet Otter or "Bah Humbug" by Pentatonix). Thank you for the help!

This makes me so happy!

Looking for a great Christmas Pudding recipe! My family has never really been into it, so we don't have a tried and tested recipe, but I'd like to make some mini ones as gifts this year. Can anyone help?

I know its early, but Christmas is my favourite time of year, so as soon as summer ends, I begin thinking about it haha.

Okay I’m absolutely Christmas obsessed and this year I want to buy a new Christmas tree for my living room. I’m going to buy an unlit one so it will last many years to come. But I have a question- I really like sweeping branches to the floor, so there is no distance from the branches to the floor- do I search for a specific tree or is it a specific stand? Or something else? Please help! I don’t want to see the metal stand and I want the branches to go to the floor. I figured Christmas Reddit would be the place to ask! Thanks for the help!

What are your thoughts if you have and if you dream of going someday

Christmas party and/or Christmas morning. My husband and I are about to move into our own home, and we will be hosting annual Christmas parties and other gatherings. I want to know what your experiences have been like. 😊

Usually I always get excited for Christmas season every year around this time of year but this year for some reason I am the most excited. Already listening to Christmas music, seeing things to buy loved ones, and starting to think of decorations. Is something different this year?

The first pic says in 112 days and the second merry Christmas with health

Slightly different than the Christmas Giants, but also pretty cool!

I bought two Grand Duchess Balsam Firs. One year, we bought the 12 ft. version, which was amazing, worked well, and looked great. Then we moved, and since the ceilings weren't as tall, I got the 7.5 ft. version, and it was terrible. The lights weren't working right off the bat, and it wasn't as full as the 12 ft. one. I am looking for something realistic with lights. My budget is $1,000.

Recently had a discussion with my wife about how we plan to do presents when we have our own children. Now me growing up, all the presents on Christmas Day were from Santa. We always had presents under the tree leading up to Christmas but that was for family and friends. My wife on the other hand believes that only a small bit should come from Santa and the other, maybe bigger items (gaming console or whatever) should be from mom and dad. I know this all sounds silly but it has me wondering now, how did others grow up with this situation? We’re all your presents just from Santa?