Ok, I'm puttin' the tree up...

[Denny]

For the past five or six years we have been in Cabo San Lucas for that week and will be again this year.

Sandy, please don't take this badly (as we go into a week of record cold, 10-20 record) but
bugger off!

Thank you,
Denny

[Charlene]

We belong to the No Tree Because of the Cats group. Besides, we are never home at Christmas. For the past five or six years we have been in Cabo San Lucas for that week and will be again this year. Before that it was skiing at Whistler.
Still,
Feliz Navidad to all,
Sandy

Hmmm ... temperature in Huntington Beach at about 1:30 pm Dec 14 -- 56F
Temperature in Cabo San Lucas --83F
Temperature in Spokane, Wa -- 6F

Can I come with you???

[anniemcu]

"Be an angel, honey, and ask grampy where he wants the tree."

"..... Gramma!"

[izzarina]

There are three things I hate and one of them is being cold.

Good grief...what a wimp

[jsluder]

We stopped doing the big Christmas tree years ago 'cause we were tired of cleaning up the cat hurl after they'd eat the needles. Last year we tried using a miniature, plastic, pre-lighted tree. We set it in the middle of the table and decorated it with miniature ornaments. An hour later, we came into the room to find the tree on its side with the cat astraddle and chewing like there's no tomorrow.

This year, the mini-tree is atop a bookcase, well out of reach for our elderly kitty. It taunts her, though. She paces back and forth in front of the bookcase, glaring at the tree. It's evil, and in need of a good pouncing. Ah... I do love tormenting the cat.

[chrisoff]

Bought a tree for my flat this year, the cat had a bit of a chew when it came out of the box, got a bop on the nose for it's troubles (guess it should have waited until I'd moved away from the tree) and he's hardly touched it since. I'm amazed.

I was sure I'd have a constant battle on my hands to stop him climbing thing and pulling it down.

Maybe he's just biding his time.

[jsluder]

I was sure I'd have a constant battle on my hands to stop him climbing thing and pulling it down.

The first Christmas after we got married, my wife and I were visiting my parents and we had the cat with us. One afternoon, I walked into the den to see the cat peering out of the middle of the Christmas tree. Now, there were fragile, glass ornaments on that tree that were older than me, and the tree was starting to sway back and forth. I quickly pulled the beastie out of the tree (acquiring a few scratches for my efforts, from both cat and tree) and confined her to a different room. The next year, my dad managed to find a tree with branches spaced so tightly that the cat couldn't fing a gap to climb up it. She circled for hours with no luck.

[Sandy McLeod]

We belong to the No Tree Because of the Cats group. Besides, we are never home at Christmas. For the past five or six years we have been in Cabo San Lucas for that week and will be again this year. Before that it was skiing at Whistler.
Still,
Feliz Navidad to all,
Sandy

Hmmm ... temperature in Huntington Beach at about 1:30 pm Dec 14 -- 56F
Temperature in Cabo San Lucas --83F
Temperature in Spokane, Wa -- 6F

Can I come with you???

Denny, I take nothing personally. (But I do gloat a bit. ) Charlene, the temp has dropped to 53 at 2:30 PM today after heavy early morning rains. Forecast is for the temperature to plummet to 45 tonight. Can't wait to get to Cabo. The second week of January I'll be doing a flyover on my way to Vancouver and up to Whistler. I'd like warmer weather at the airport and some more snow on the mountain. I understand from local friends they need it.
Sandy

[cowtime]

which my mother--later--would redistribute according to her 2 strand
at a time sensibility.

wait..just a blind guess here... was your mother raised during the depression??

then, after Christmas, the strands were carefully removed form the tree and repackaged for use next year?

Well, lemme see here...the Great Depression was roughly '29 to '39, and she was born in '35...and, yes, a certain Depression mentality was certainly present during her early years--she has referred to it.

But I think she just didn't like the globs. She found them too globby. She doesn't use tinsel anymore, anyway.
(It was always saved for next year though, you got that part right.)

Hey we always saved the tinsel for the next year..and yes,my mom was a child of the depression, born in 1924. I never even thought about why we would have always saved it.

And tinsel must never be "globbed".

I've also got some old red and silver metallic garland like this-


and two ancient strands of red celluloid garland-


Uh oh, in looking for some pictures I found some more stuff on that auction site...

[devondancer]

Our tree is up!

It is an artificial one, as for many years we too had cats, but it looks good. The decorations are a strange mixture, and I love to see them again each year. Some were my grandmother's, some came from my parents, yet others were gifts from my mother or sister, and a few I have chosen myself. It is like meeting old friends.

We have some nice fat tinsel, too.

Lesley