How long did you leave the Christmas tree up?

COH & ACOA Joined: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 2031 Location: Cabo

Here are some past posts from the COH Yahoo support group...how long did your tree stay up??
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From: ****

Posted: Jan 30th, 2007

I remember for a few years it never came down at all. Me and my
brother took it down one time after school was started, maybe
around August, she went koo koo for co co puffs and put the damn
thing right back up, and it stayed up for that Christmas and the
following one. That tree was so depressing, Christmas is great
and all but all that tree did was remind me of all of our problems
that we couldn't fix. One good thing was that it was a fake tree
and was less likely to start a fire...

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Jan 31st, 2007

What a good question!! We always had a real tree and I remember
one year, it was up until APRIL! Another year, my mom had such
trouble parting with it (imagining 'uses' for it) she dragged it
out of the house and left it in the backyard "for the bird to
build nests in". Umm... don't try this at home-- birds did NOT
build nests in it, but MICE started living in it (!!). I think
the tree FINALLY disappeared in the summer along with the
trimmings from mowing the lawn. How nuts is that in a four-season
climate-- the Xmas tree goes out when you start mowing the LAWN??
haha

Elizabeth

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From: ****
Posted: Feb 1st, 2007

We had a fake tree, and it would come down right after Ukrainian
Christmas (Jan 7th), but, if I recall correctly, I was the one to
take it down. I was also the one to put it up. After I moved out,
the tree would go up later and later. One year we came home for
Christmas on Christmas Eve and the tree still wasn't up...how
could it be, with the hoard accumulating in the living room?

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Feb 2nd, 2007

What christmas tree?

Jeanne

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From: *****
Posted: Feb 4th, 2007

Ha, this is funny. My mother "collected" Christmas ornaments
(and music boxes), supposedly all for me. I proclaimed no
interest in that, but she kept "collecting" them anyway. They
were kept very organized, one of the few well-kept and well-organized
things we had, so it was a serious pain to remove each one from its
individual box and then return it to the same box after Christmas.
We are talking about hundreds of ornaments, more than would
reasonably fit on a tree.

The ordeal of putting the tree up and taking it down eventually
led to us abandoning Christmas decorations altogether. There was
no joy in it for me and I still don't decorate for Christmas even
now. As my mother's house is packed to the gills with "stuff" at
this point, she really can't decorate, either. It's pretty sad,
but the holidays have no meaning for me.

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Feb 5th, 2007

Yep, same here. Originally it was a huge ordeal but it was
eventualy abandoned and no one bothered with a tree.

I'm not big on Christmas either, probably for the same reason.
For me it represented stress and chaos. My mom invaribly would
have a meltdown because she couldn't pull it all together, even
just getting all the gifts wrapped. Or she would lose some of
them. Eventually she just stopped wrapping them and put them
in plastic Wal Mart bags. Now some years she does get them
wrapped, some years not.

The irony is that hubs and I didn't really decorate, in large
part because we have a puppy and cats, which both make it
difficult, but my mom sent me a Christmas wreath, and it
ended up being pretty much our sole decoration.

Jeanne

Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 11:24 am Post subject:

For the most part the Christmas decorations would stay up until February at least. The tree sometimes April/may. I always wanted to take it down a few days after Christmas, but my mom would always insist we keep it up until after Ukrainian Christmas. But we didnâ€™t even celebrate Ukrainian Christmas.

COH Under 18 yrs. Joined: Feb 15, 2008 Posts: 98

Heh. Yeah, we would put it up, and it would stay up for a while. After a while we just quit because there wasn't room. There were real ones and the few plastic ones she has. Christmas sucked. It was awesome but overtime when I got older and realized what was happening every christmas it sucked. Even every other christmas where we'd go up to my grandma's house in a small town in northern wisconsin where everything was snowy and beautiful and the towns just got really festive becasue they had nothing better to do. She has a giant house (grandpa died a few years ago now) and all my dad's relatives live there too. He was the only one who left besides a few of my cousins who went crazy awesome hippy in california (living in a tee pee and wearing hemp clothes and all) and her brother who was in california for a while too, but all music-y. So anyway, these christamases at home would involve dad getting all pissed at my sister for not being happy, then being pissed at mom more each year as the house gets worse and worse and I was oblivious most of the time except for random shouting which would just leave my head almost as soon as it had ended. Christmas was like super lie day. Everyone was "happy" even inside the house. When we go up to grandmas it's almost as bad becasue of all the comments on how nice it is there. maybe two years ago I cried to sleep that christmas eve because I overheard my sister talking to her boyfriend on the phone describing grandma's as the "only normal christmas's we'd have" and really realized how lame things were and had been. She didn't know I heard and stuff and we were up in our room place and I was across the room. It was...horrible. That was when the depression and stuff was really hitting. My sister was fresh in therapy with more relapses coming soon and my parents were probably at thier worst. Now I'm just all angry. I really hope I don't hit my dad. Just lost control for the first time a few weeks ago and and hit a wall in a damaging sort of way. I feel all pansey ish because it's not all that bad for me. What really ticks me off is every other kid who's got it worse. Argh! But yeah. This thread should be changed to lame christmases. and holidays.

COH Under 18 yrs. Joined: Oct 28, 2007 Posts: 25

Yeah i agree christmas is definately the most stressful time of year. Every year it would be this mad rush maybe two nights before christmas day to tidy the living room so we could spend christmas in it (the living room is one of the worst rooms in our house) and the christmas tree would invariably always go up on christmas eve around 12 at night! However i must say after we were done it was so nice to have a "normal" christmas after. For this reason i still stick at it every year but as the house gets worse and worse it is getting less possible to tidy. I think pretty soon the whole living room tidying will have to be abandoned along with our 12 at night tree.

After our tree was up it would stay for 2-3 months and even then my mother would only get it as far as our backyard. Infact i think we still have one in our yard at the moment that never made it into our house in the first place.
My mum can't resist those penny (or free!) christmas trees when the shops are trying to get rid of them, even though she knows we wont get it up she can't help herself from taking one, sometimes two.

Valued Member Joined: Aug 12, 2008 Posts: 7

One year, ours stayed up until March or April. My sister was embarrassed to bring her friends over, and so I remember this because she still tells this story.

Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 5:04 am Post subject:

My mother's Christmas tree has been up, and fully decorated, for DECADES. Every Christmas she dusts it off and tells me how great it is that she doesn't have to fuss each year by putting it up again.

Now the "Christmas" wreath that is on our front door, THAT's a whole other story. It goes up on my birthday (November) and comes down on her birthday (June). Imagine how embarassed a young teenager was when people would ask why our Christmas wreath is still up! Horrifying!

Sally-Sue

Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:12 pm Post subject:

Speaking of Chrismas, it's what, 135 days away? Is it too soon to start feeling stressed????? I really don't want to deal with it this year!

Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:25 pm Post subject:

I'm starting to stress already! Oh no no no

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:01 pm Post subject:

It came down, as soon as we had removed and perfectly aligned each one of those damned shiny strand icicles back in their boxes!!!!

The last tree, I wound up throwing it out the front window when she walked in and saw it. My brother, who no longer lived with us thought she needed a tree. She hadn't put one up since her "first born" committed suicide. He thought that would just make everything allll better!
It's so much more than the hoard.

Son of a Hoarder Joined: Jun 04, 2008 Posts: 4

LOL!!! I started laughing when I read the title of the post and laughed all the way through most of the comments!! This is great...so glad you guys relate...it was at least February for us...I also appreciatted the comment about having to clean a couple days before in order to make space to celebrate!!! WE DID THAT!!! oh me...it's funny cause it's not and it is...me me funny, rofl

Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 3:21 pm Post subject:

Speaking fo Christmas...

3 weeks-
21 days-
504 hours
30240 minutes

We're having Christmas at our mother's house this year. First time in 20 years. Don't confuse this with a success story. The hoard isn't gone, it's upstairs. If you're very quiet you can hear the floor boards creaking and the walls groaning. God help us if we get a heavy, wet snowstorm to add more weight over our heads...

Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject: Count-down

Quote:

Speaking fo Christmas...

3 weeks-
21 days-
504 hours
30240 minutes

But who's counting, eh Lisa?

Sally-Sue