Halloween

Mountain Cat said:
Yes, I know I am up in Massachusetts, but NOTHING goes out for a winter holiday until the second week of December here. I also want to be sure my tree is more freshly-cut than now.

I can be just cheerful seeing the Halloween/Samhain and the Thanksgiving things now. Christmas and/or Solstice can wait. I will look in November on that end of things.
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The only times we've put up a tree this early were the times we put up an artificial tree. I'd never put up a real tree before the weekend after Thanksgiving at the earliest, and when we do use a real tree (like we have the last few years), we always cut our own, so it's fresh that weekend.

We've bought from lots before, but those are iffy - we've had lot trees purchased in November last right up into January, and we've bought them in early December, only to have them look pretty paltry two weeks later. Personally, my favorite tree was an artificial all-white tree, because it really made all our glass-blown ornaments shine and sparkle.

All the displays in the store just add to the mood for me. I want to eat all the holiday foods, have all the drinks, I like everything smelling like cinnamon and pine, and I love all the greens, golds, and reds. I have three velvet sport coats, and really, the only time that's good for wearing those is after Thanksgiving and up through New Year's Eve, so I even look forward to thinking about wearing those.

For me, the best part of the year, all told, is Dec 1st-25th, because that's when everything is in high gear, barreling toward The Day, and all the festivities associated with October and November are kind of like a practice run, like October is good for exercising your decorating muscles, because there's a lot to do that way for Halloween, and November is good for ramping up your cooking game, since that's what Thanksgiving is all about, and then December is the real show, with decorations and food, and all the other stuff thrown in, like gift-exchanging and Christmas concerts and Christmas TV all that.

I'll completely cop to not being able to shut up about Christmas. I love it from top to bottom, every inch of it, and for me, it's the culmination of a whole year's work and suffering and sacrifice, so when I see Christmas stuff at Sam's in August, I get a little tingling sensation, and when they start the new Hallmark Christmas movies for the year (Oct 29th this year), the tingle turns into a vibration, and as soon as the last plate is washed and put away from Thanksgiving dinner, I'm positively bouncing off the walls with sheer, pristine Crimbo joy!
 
:laugh:
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TastyReuben said:
The only times we've put up a tree this early were the times we put up an artificial tree. I'd never put up a real tree before the weekend after Thanksgiving at the earliest, and when we do use a real tree (like we have the last few years), we always cut our own, so it's fresh that weekend.

We've bought from lots before, but those are iffy - we've had lot trees purchased in November last right up into January, and we've bought them in early December, only to have them look pretty paltry two weeks later. Personally, my favorite tree was an artificial all-white tree, because it really made all our glass-blown ornaments shine and sparkle.

All the displays in the store just add to the mood for me. I want to eat all the holiday foods, have all the drinks, I like everything smelling like cinnamon and pine, and I love all the greens, golds, and reds. I have three velvet sport coats, and really, the only time that's good for wearing those is after Thanksgiving and up through New Year's Eve, so I even look forward to thinking about wearing those.

For me, the best part of the year, all told, is Dec 1st-25th, because that's when everything is in high gear, barreling toward The Day, and all the festivities associated with October and November are kind of like a practice run, like October is good for exercising your decorating muscles, because there's a lot to do that way for Halloween, and November is good for ramping up your cooking game, since that's what Thanksgiving is all about, and then December is the real show, with decorations and food, and all the other stuff thrown in, like gift-exchanging and Christmas concerts and Christmas TV all that.

I'll completely cop to not being able to shut up about Christmas. I love it from top to bottom, every inch of it, and for me, it's the culmination of a whole year's work and suffering and sacrifice, so when I see Christmas stuff at Sam's in August, I get a little tingling sensation, and when they start the new Hallmark Christmas movies for the year (Oct 29th this year), the tingle turns into a vibration, and as soon as the last plate is washed and put away from Thanksgiving dinner, I'm positively bouncing off the walls with sheer, pristine Crimbo joy!
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I wish I had your enthusiasm for christmas. When I was married, my wife had a gazillion christmas decorations, and I had to get them out of the attic, and put them up. Inside and out, it was brutal. Not quite "Clark Griswold" level, but only because I put my foot down when things started going "over the top."

Worse than putting all that stuff up was taking it down, boxing it up, and putting back in the attic.

But, the absolute worst part was that we spent christmas every year either at her mom's house, or my parent's house -- alternating years. We had a tree, and all this stuff, and went out of town!

Now, I don't own one single christmas decoration. Not one. My neighbors get a good chuckle out of it, because they know the history behind it.

CD
 
caseydog - at one point, we were putting up nine Christmas trees (of various sizes) throughout the house.

I miss that though. Now we keep it down to a reasonable five trees, but I feel like I'm missing something. :)
 
A story today says that around 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste will be generated by throwaway Halloween costumes - and that is in the UK alone. That's the equivalent of 83 million plastic bottles.

Source: The Guardian/Hubbub (an environmental charity)
 
Duck59 said:
A story today says that around 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste will be generated by throwaway Halloween costumes - and that is in the UK alone. That's the equivalent of 83 million plastic bottles.

Source: The Guardian/Hubbub (an environmental charity)
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Wow! Thanks for that post. Imagine how many trees are cut down to wrap christmas gifts. It's one of many things we humans don't think about.

CD
 
caseydog said:
How many of us have pets who know how to open wrapped gifts? Psycho poodle does. My parent's poodle doesn't get it. My dog ends up opening her christmas gift for her. BTW, their gifts are bags of dog treats.

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CD
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Kate absolutely knows how and she takes great delight in ripping hers open.
One of my favorite ornaments is of a plastic Grinch figure, about the only plastic on the tree, and I like it because the first Christmas we had Kate, she worked it off the tree and chewed his little legs down to nubs. We took a red marker and made them bloody stumps and he's on our tree every year. :laugh:
 
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