Your holiday hill to die on.

[Free Range Hippy Chick]

Multiple trees are good... my DH's family always put up an artificial tree, and it went up at the start of December. My family, a real tree and it went up Christmas Eve. Now as we all know, anybody else's family does Christmas (or whatever other celebration is on hand) All Wrong, always, so our first Christmas, we freaked out at each other.

Compromise. A little tabletop tree, with mini decorations, on top of the cabinet from the first of December or as soon thereafter as we can remember where we put it last year. A full sized real tree in the corner, usually going up the weekend before Christmas.

Sometimes, more is better.

[Lady Snowdon]

Lights!  I will not have anything other than a pre-lit tree, even though we get comments every year about how that's not in the spirit of Christmas  .  The first two years DH and I lived together, I nearly killed him when we went to set up our tree.  That was when I found out he is a Christmas light perfectionist.  Each strand has to be arranged just so, and it would take him longer to string the lights than it did to hang each individual ornament!  I "accidentally" tossed some of the branches from the old tree instead of putting them away, and the next year when we "discovered" this, I suggested we buy a pre-lit tree "to make it easier on both of us".  Now we just argue about the balance of ornaments (he thinks the prettier ones face inward so we can see them, I think they should face outward so others can see them through the window), and I can live with that argument!

[Katana_Geldar]

But untangling the Christmas lights is part if it! And I'm a good untangler!

[Venus193]

So am I, but I haven't put up a tree in a very long time.  I have cats who would probably destroy any Christmas tree and I also don't like the idea of killing them to have them decorate my home for a couple of weeks.

If I ever had a house I would have two evergreens in the front yard and decorate them.

[kckgirl]

One of my neighbors used to buy live trees that come with root balls in a burlap wrapper. Before the first frost, they would dig the hole where they plant the tree after Christmas. I don't know if they still do it since there aren't any more in their front yard, but they might be planting in the back now.

[Lady Snowdon]

But untangling the Christmas lights is part if it! And I'm a good untangler!

We untangle the lights that go outside instead, so that's still a part of it!  I'm just not willing to stand around and wait for up to an hour and a half while DH fusses about the placement of two lights on the tree, or mutters about not having enough strands when we pulled out every strand we own. 

[GratefulMaria]

^^^^  That's adorable!!!

I just remembered that DH, DS1 (24), and DS2 (20) have a hill to die on:  our little Christmas tree.  When the boys were little and our house was, too, we had a small tabletop tree.  It's a brave, plastic, artificial little thing, only about a couple of feet high.  Guess who got emotionally attached?  When we moved to our current house ten years ago and had enough room for a full-size tree, I wanted to go all out with a live one and was met with an incredulous explosion of grief-stricken devotion.  The small tree stayed.  :-)

So, is the old dinky tree the only tree you guys have, or have you moved to the 'multiple trees' scheme of things?

It's the only one; I didn't want to hurt its feelings by having others.   

[---]

This year I made a point to my aunt: if there's sports on the TV during Thanksgiving, I'm packing up, going home, and spending Christmas at home this year. If the few people that do watch sports want to hijack the main TV so the rest of the family can't do anything about it, I'm not going to bother staying or come back over for a holiday again.

If sports are more important to some family members then their own family, I much rather spend my time at home, online, and with my cat then to be subjected to the sports program that I have never held any interest in. And I'm not the first person who has threatened to do this and won't be the last, either -- I suspect I'll be Family Member #5 who won't be spending time with this side of the family during the holidays because of sports.

[*inviteseller]

Update to the family ditching me...relative planning dinner texts me last night to ask me if I am going with them so they can make reservations (so my invite came out waay before this idea) and I said no, but thanks for waiting till I made plans and bought all the food.  She said "Well, I didn't think anyone had real plans so I told 'other relative' we were all going out to eat and 'other relative' said "ok, that sounds like fun'.    .  I said I am glad my invitations were that meaningless and that they could make reservations for Christmas dinner also because I was not inviting them for that either (and for the last 18 years I have been doing the family Christmas meal).  Gonna make a huge meal for me and my kids on Thursday, we are gonna watch tv and lay in our jammies all day and be thankful for each other.

[Jloreli]

I like your plan *Inviteseller!

If your area is anything like mine the out to dinner crew is going to be out of luck if they waited until yesterday to try to get a reservation on Thanksgiving!  Here if you haven't done it several weeks ago you would be lucky to get a spot at an odd time, if at all! I wouldn't be surprised if they have that trouble that suddenly they want to take you up on your previous invitation. 

[Coralreef]

My hill to die on came about when DD was 5 months old.  She had just started to sleep 6 hours in a row when Christmas came around.  As usual, we ended up going to my sister's on Christmas Eve.  Very late dinner, opening presents after midnight (more like 1 am) then going home.  It messed up DD's schedule so bad, it took several months to get her back to a somewhat regular night sleep. 

I then decided that Christmas Eve would be at my place, dinner would be a 18:30, presents opened between main course and dessert, and that by 20:00 DD would be in bed.  This remained the standard, as a lot of people realised that they were not so exhausted for the following days and the older relatives were thrilled as they were able to get home before midnight. 

There are no babies in the family (yet) but the early dinner part has remained. 

[Minmom3]

^ I heard about one church that only allows stuff to be thrown outside.  But you aren't allowed to throw confetti or rice or birdseed or anything like that.  Too much mess.  What do they allow you to throw, then?

Grass seed.

Brilliant.

Heh.  Bet their gardener LOVES that - having grass sprout in all kinds of places it doesn't belong in....

[Minmom3]

Regarding mentions here of Christmas trees and the cats who live with them:

http://www.fluffytails.ca/christmas.asp

   I think this is my favorite cat & Christmas site!

[gingerzing]

This year I made a point to my aunt: if there's sports on the TV during Thanksgiving, I'm packing up, going home, and spending Christmas at home this year. If the few people that do watch sports want to hijack the main TV so the rest of the family can't do anything about it, I'm not going to bother staying or come back over for a holiday again.

If sports are more important to some family members then their own family, I much rather spend my time at home, online, and with my cat then to be subjected to the sports program that I have never held any interest in. And I'm not the first person who has threatened to do this and won't be the last, either -- I suspect I'll be Family Member #5 who won't be spending time with this side of the family during the holidays because of sports.

My grandmother (AKA - Force of Nature) took care of that one year and we never had an issue again.  Keep in mind this is back in the day that most people only had one TV. 
Thanksgiving (or perhaps Christmat, can't remember) dinner is about to be served and there is a group (not all guys, but those who weren't scheduled to help set up or cook*) watching THE game on the TV.  Grandma comes in after calling out that dinner is ready and to come pray. No one moved from the living room.  Big play starts and Grandma walked out and turned off the TV.  "Time to come eat...NOW"  Every guy (and gal) walked meekly into the dining room.  Dinner was not rushed and the TV didn't get turned back on until MUCH later even after we were done.


*My grandmother had a system that everyone - and she meant EVERYONE - had to help with holiday meals.  This was before Excel (which she would have LOVED).  She made a chart of planned meals.  With 3people to set up the table before the meal, 3-4 people to cook, and 3-4 people to clean up and do dishes.  She made it so different family members/different generations worked together. It was quite fun.  She planned the entire week for each meal like this.  (Some family came early/stayed late... she had a system)

[MrTango]

I'm going to take the opposite stance with the TV at our house this year: I'm going to tune the TV to the Lions/Packers game, set the volume relatively low, and then put the remote control away so that it doesn't get changed from that.

That way, people who want to watch the game can do so down in the family room, and people who don't want to watch the game can visit without having to yell over the TV.

I'm also going to set up a table & chair in one of the spare bedrooms and put my laptop computer in there.  When (not if) I start to get over-peopled and anxious, I'll retreat to that room and close the door for a little while until I'm ready to be social again.