When Do You Take Down Your Christmas Tree? #christmastree #christmasdecorations

Hello and welcome to the last Focused on Story Blog Post in 2022. Doesn't that seem impossible? 2023 is just days away. I remember when everyone was in a tizzy about 1999 transitioning into the 21st century. The media predicted disaster ahead with the banks shutting down and computers going awry unable to make the change from the 20th to 21st century. Another example of the media hyping the news, eh? 

I hope you had a very merry Christmas and a happy Hanukkah!

Me by the Christmas tree

This week, my question is--when do you take down your tree? My mother always left ours up until my brother's birthday, Jan 5. And that was before artificial trees were invented, so it was pretty dry, but we didn't put it up early in the season. Dad usually picked up the last tree in the lot on Christmas Eve. It was usually crooked with a bad side, but Mom would turn the sparse side to the wall and prop the tree up to look straight. Sometimes when straightened, it did not fit in the space allocated for it. Too wide, too tall. Time for the sawing to commence.

My parents were not in a good mood while getting that tree up and in place. Do you remember that? It was a chore, especially when everyone was tired from working all day, and the tree did not want to stand indoors in our living room. Sad to take it away from its beautiful outdoor home in the woods with a view of the skies.

I miss the fragrance of fresh evergreen trees in the house during Christmas. Do you? I do not miss sweeping up the dried needles on the carpet. Impossible to get each one. Be assured, it will show up when it pierces the bottom of your bare foot at Easter time or late summer. Ouch!

Hmmm, nowadays, many homes have hardwood or laminated plank floors. So it would be a breeze to run your iRobot Vacuum cleaner to pick up all those remnants of the tree. How things have changed.

Remember stringing lights on those prickly trees? Little red spots would appear on my hands and arms from either the sharp needles or perhaps an allergic reaction to the tree. And, oh why, oh why, did ALL of the lights work when we plugged them in to check before installing them on the tree? However, after winding them around the tree branches, they did not twinkle at all but lay dark and dead on the evergreen. Those were the days when one light didn't work, the entire string of lights went out!

With artificial trees, many folks keep them up all year changing the decorations for every season of the year. Clever people.

That brings me back to the original question. When do you take down your Christmas tree?

I hope you have memories of Christmases past, good and bad. Please leave a comment below about your experiences with Christmas trees. Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed walking down the path of Christmas memories with me.

Perhaps this blog post will stir you to write about your experience with Christmas trees or Christmas traditions. Then you will have one life story to put in a folder where you can add more of these little vignettes to share with your family and friends.

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