Since I have the kitty twins I can't put up a tree this year because the boys would try to climb it.

I looked for the Christmas stockings for the grandchildren last week and can't find them. I wanted them to hang their stockings on the mantle on TG day but not to be this year. I still need to order stockings for my human twin grandbabies but can't till I find the other ones so I can decide what designs to order.

My first DH's mother died last Saturday, her funeral was yesterday so this was a very bittersweet Thanksgiving, and a very hectic one. She was a wonderful woman and will be sorely missed by all of us.

I will probably be able to decorate in less than an hour because of not putting up a tree. DH is a bah humbug type so that doesn't help the Christmas spirit!

I take my time. Usually the lights go on outside the day after TG but it was pretty cold yesterday (and I find that the older I get, the lower my discomfort threshold for managing lights and cold). I like to to one "aspect" at a time, over several days: the foyer decorations, the mantle, the piano, the dining room. I really liked my "theme" last year and got so many compliments on the look, and I think I'll do a variation on it again. The overall feel was "in the forest": I used my green and gold, vignettes of trees and animals, with touches of blue. Now that I have my fireplace fender, I can try something different with the hearth!

Last year so many people around town had their lights up AND ON for a couple of weeks before TG. This year, even if they are up, people waited to turn them on till yesterday, but there still weren't that many.

When my kids come for Thanksgiving they get the boxes down from the attic and hide them in the guest room until I'm ready. Except for the dining room table I don't decorate for Thanksgiving so the day after I'm ready to start on Christmas. I usually finish it a day while listening to carols.

The outside decorations are minimal - a fresh pine wreath on the lamp post, a few urns full of pine, berries, magnolia leaves and my favorite old Santa by the door.

MsGG, your outdoor lights are spectacular!! Your DH is a Christmas Keeper!!

Arcy, love your Nativity!

Have hung a few wreaths outside and put greenery in our large whiskey barrel. Still need a few more things outside, but not today as its raining.

Inside, I just took down Thanksgiving decorations and need to pack them away. Decorating will start this afternoon with the majority being done tomorrow (Thank you Patrioits for playing Sunday night so I can rest). Main tree will go up during the week and I'll pick at it each night. Goal is to have everything done by next weekend.

Our 55+ community is talking about having open houses for people to come through and see everyone's decorations. Voluntary, of course. I'm game.

We usually get started the week after TG, in part, because we do a Christmas open house each year in early December. This year, however, we are getting hardwood floors installed late this week. Happy Dancing! The second week of December will be carpet in the Master. More happy dancing! We will not do our regular party this year...or maybe wait until January and have a New Year's party of some sort.

So no décor inside until the messy wood is done. I think I'll keep it very simple this year...do the mantle, put up a smaller than normal tree, decorate the dining table. I swapped out the regular dishes for the Christmas ones this morning. Outside it's cold and wet. If we get a good break in that weather, we will do the outside...if not, I'll be content with a wreath on the door with a bit of lighted garland around the door.

We can do it in a weekend. A day if that was all we did. But we take our time and enjoy it. It's a family affair! We don't do alot of outside decorations, this year just greenery and red velvet ribbons on lights, post light, wreath on door. A Christmas flag and I bought a big white-washed star made from old tobacco stakes that hangs on my wooden vine pole. We will hit the nursery today or tomorrow for fresh greenery for the big porch planter and a couple of poinsettas. I have not had poinsettas in years but am wanting white ones this year. The inside will be 3 smaller trees rather that one large one. We have always had a tree in our bedroom. Hubby came home last week with a beautiful vintage tinsel tree - table-top but tall. It is in our bedroom. Also have a new nativity set I will be putting out today - hoping it will work on the dining room table, if not, the chest in there.

Our tree won't go up for at least two more weeks..this weekend there will not be time and next we are gone to visit DD1 and hear her choir concert--she has the solo!! It is a lot of work--once started I enjoy it all. Love the pictures--everything is so lovely. Our outside lights won't be officially lit until Sunday night. So far I have the angels and my Norman Rockwell tins done.

MizGG, love the dusk shots!

It's still fall at our house, but guess I'll enlist dh's help to get all the boxes out of the attic and then I'll pick a day this week to decorate. We get it done in half a day. Any more than that and I don't think I'd bother.

Zowie, MizGG!!

We just picked up our tree this afternoon. The local pool sells them as a fundraiser, this is the weekend to pick them up, so it's out on the deck taking on water and spreading out. We'll probably decorate it tomorrow. It is best to do it on the weekend. We might actually put it in the dining area this year vs. the living room.

...and a partridge in a pear tree. Whew! Done inside with 2 big trees and 3 little trees, dozens of decorations, stockings hung, nativity carefully staged and only 3 broken things!

I've started but haven't finished. DH and I bought trees for the family room and living room yesterday and got them in their stands. It's always such a process! I put the lights on last night and polished the silver ornaments. Today I decorated them and got their tree skirts on. I've filled vases and bowls with ornaments and put wreaths on the front door (It still needs a bow.) and the tree house, but that's about it. We're having friends over for dinner tonight, and I don't have the energy to do any more right now.

We have an artificial tree for the playroom, and my boys will decorate it with their friends tonight. Fun for them and one less thing for me!

Tomorrow I'll pull out some of the smaller decorative things and my Christmas China. I'll probably wait at least another week to put up garland, so it doesn't get too dry before Christmas.

Love all you've done arcy, kswl, and mizgg.

I think I'll only put up one tree, stockings/mantel decorations and my Nativity sets this year. Though I love the look of more, I find it's more work when I'd rather go simple and enjoy the time with my family.

I've not started a thing. I usually like to get lights up outside this weekend, but we ended up with a few inches of snow on Thansgiving. No way I'm going out on the roof, now! Hopefully it will warm up enough to melt it, soon :)

I am DONE!! I need to get the empty boxes back in the cupboard so DH can move forward on his bathroom. Here is a pic of my home made wreath--it is a few years old and this year didn't want to light up..but I found the loose bulb so one more year anyway!! If I have a theme it is homemade..I made the tree skirt, angels and stockings years ago...

arcy, that is so pretty and cozy ... I just want to be sitting in front of a roaring fire, with a good book, and enjoying the lights. :)

I have been puzzling over your thread title for two days now. What does dawning Christmas mean?

When I first saw the title, I thought the OP may have meant "downing Christmas", as a few people were on another thread.

But then I took it to mean "the beginning or first appearance of something.", per "Webster's"

I need to update my thread about my holiday decor attempt ... which is not yet resolved.

ACK!! Wish I could blame spell check. I clearly meant DONNING Christmas.

Gotta love spellcheck. But, I suppose it all depends on your accent :) And to tell the truth, both work!

Love seeing these photos! It's definitely "beginning to look at lot like Christmas"!

Here's the extent of it at our house. I made the wreath for the door, and picked up the little prelit 6' "potted tree" at Big Lots. It's a far cry from fancy, but I just wanted a little touch for the house this year. Still considering a nativity set, but I have no idea where I'd put it.

Nice job on your wreath, Auntjen!

Pretty decorations everyone! Mind boggling how some of you "go all out" and can do so much.

This year, I am downsizing...I think. I told my husband and children that because I have a shoulder injury that I could not possibly decorate a large tree. Real excuse is that i don't want to do it because I get very little help.

My solution is to get a live 5 foot live tree and place it on a round table top. Not sure if it will go in front of the living room windows or in the middle of the foyer where we usually place our large tree. I just hope it works up on that table!

I also ordered an artificial 7', pre-lite Pencil tree for our family room.

The rest of the decor will be limited. I refuse to bring it all up from my Christmas storage room. The only problem is that I purchased some new decor for this year. I just couldn't help it! Even got two reindeer for the outdoors and am putting more lights on the bushes. At least that's the plan.

Hopefully, my daughter will come help me decorate this weekend. I helped her decorate her apartment last weekend and even made her new bows ($3 each). She picked out the ribbon from Big Lots. I thought it looked a little country and was surprised at what she picked out.

The lights look better at night. LOL

I thought we were going to cut back this year ..... but ...... we were at a neighborhood party recently, and met a sweet young couple who just moved here. I overheard my husband and the other husband talking about Christmas lights, and was trying to think how I could quickly change the subject. Too late. The new neighbor said he was planning to do lights, and another neighbor piped up, "Oh, wait until you see the G's lights!" New guy starts teasing about having a competition. I just shook my head and had another gulp of wine. Here we go....

I saw my husband's very competitive eyes light up. Challenge accepted! On the walk home, Mr G is pointing towards our house, "Ok, we need another wreath for there, and yada, yada......"

Sigh. :D

LOL! Is your last name Griswold? ;-D

Ha! If I hadn't seen his birth certificate, I'd start to wonder .... :D

The stinker always forgets how cold it is when we have to take lights down! My fingers hurt already, just thinking of it. The pics I posted were before we wrapped all the tree trunks in lights. Ouch!

Please tell me he isn't tempted to add one of these ...

My inlaws have just added this to their holiday décor and proudly showed it off last night. Their neighbors have the StarShower too. Both houses look leprous.

The creators of "StarShower" will eventually have to answer for their sins. What would happen if aliens decided to visit the earth in a neighborhood with multiple homes that looked like that? We'd be toast in no time. o<{:-)

Oh, Jen. No. I can't let him see that idea. Is there a way for me to disable searches for "Christmas lights ideas" on his phone? Or setting google to secretly redirect him to jewelry websites instead?

I'm sure everyone has already seen this, but I still find it quite clever!

Love it! :D

My neighbors hopefully don't copy this one:

LOL! That's awesome!

Here's mine.

Ideally, I'd love to be able to just spend the Friday through Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend enjoying my beautiful Autumn decs, eating T-Day leftovers and relaxing with my family. But . . . our 21 y/o DD was home from college for the week and begged me to start putting up our Christmas decorations. I couldn't refuse as she's so darn sweet, although I wanted to. So we, meaning myself and DD (in between working on papers due right after she went back) started in on it Friday morning. She drove back to the university yesterday morning and I'm still only 2/3 done. I have bins lined up still along the walls of one hallway and in our living room waiting to be emptied and refilled with everyday things that I'll pack away for the holiday. The Christmas cards that I designed arrived from Shutterfly the other day and now I need to make time to get them out. They turned out great, BTW. I've used them before for cards, books, etc. and I like the quality of their work. And, on top of it all, we're having most every window and door wall in this house replaced. Anderson Windows has been out twice in the past week measuring, etc. and they just let me know that they should be able to start right after the New Year. OMG . . . no way! They are just going to have to wait until at least mid-January! On top of it all, the long storage unit in our walk-in laundry room closet collapsed. What great timing that was! DH and I ended up spending the entire weekend before Thanksgiving and part of last week patching walls (me), repainting the room (me), and putting in a new, much sturdier unit that has a single rod for long coats, 2 double rods for jackets, and a cabinet and drawers in between. Tomorrow I'm adding another tall cabinet with doors to our walk-in MBR closet. It's waiting for me out in the garage right now and I can't put it off any longer. I've just spent most of today so far Christmas shopping online. I'm happy that I'm so far along with decorations, cards and shopping this year, but I'm starting to feel the stress, as well!

"How long will it take you to get your home "set" for Christmas?"

About one minute, including the time it takes to pull this out of the closet ...

... and open it to this:

It takes about the same amount of time to put it away. ;)

edited, as I posted on the wrong thread. Oops!

The Christmas cards that I designed arrived from Shutterfly the other day and now I need to make time to get them out. They turned out great, BTW. I've used them before for cards, books, etc. and I like the quality of their work.

I've used Shutterfly and Snapfish for cards and calendars. Both have excellent quality!

Everyone has a lovely start (or finish, as it were) already!

Arcy, I meant to ask when you posted this over the weekend. I think I recall your tree skirt from last year--is that the same one? (I was a lurker not a poster then). It's charming... is there a story behind it?

After spending hours getting the lights right on the tree....I feel like

although, I do have my mantel started. I still want to add glass jars of Christmas candies.

BEAUTIFUL! Maddielee. You are very talented. Can you use the fireplace with the garland hanging? I am forever getting comments from DH concerning using the fireplace. Put your feet up, sip a glass of wine and let the stress wash away!!

Arcy....thanks. I'm in central Florida, 85 degrees today. Good question that I hadn't considered. If we are lucky enough to cool down before New Year's Eve, we'll be very careful about the fire and pull the garland down.

We bought fresh greenery for the old copper boiler (kind of a tub/pot) Saturday, but it's been raining ever since, so have not put it in the pot yet. nor has hubby been able to get some trimmings off our magnolia tree. Inside is done although I need to get a couple more poinsettias. I like to use the smallish pots and use several in a larger container, I can arrange them better for a nice full look. I need one more for the sunroom and another one for the dining room, plus I think I'll add some ivy to that. I haven't had poinsettias in years but I'm enjoying these. Creme color in the sunroom and the creme with slight streaks of pink in the dining room.

Our "everything" tree with ornaments collected throughout the years, with our Polar Express train!

Our themed tree- white, crystal and mirrors. Looks much better in person ;-)

A partridge with a pear for a little pop of color and mirth.

LOVE those fluffy birds!! I was just thinking the other day I wonder if anyone will post a tree with a train! It is amazing all the different looks one can get with Christmas trees!!

I fell in love with this wood tree a few years ago and of course, bought it. But.........it never found its forever (Christmas) home.

This year, I hung it over the commode in the bath and while I liked it, the scale was off and it bothered me.

I dreaded another shopping excursion 'looking' since the tree fits with our nature look and I still love it.

The chrome frame works with our chrome fixtures in the bathroom which surprised me since my first inclination was to go rustic.

Re glass jars of Christmas candy, I've started mine. Will have to buy more and refill before Christmas and visitors stop by. I can't stay away from the Lindor chocolates. mmmm. Heck I can't stay away from any of it. The chocolate covered cherries didn't make it into the photo. : )

slowly getting the house completely dressed for Christmas.

Love the pics! LOVE the choc cherries...lol