This year, mom and I decorated for Christmas much earlier than normal which we started last weekend and it has taken most of the week to do. Part of it was because we wanted to see how the cats would handle the Christmas tree and the other decorations.

Throughout the week I have been curious on whether or not leaving the church has had an affect on how you decorate for Christmas. Has there been any traditions that you have either abandon or even started since leaving?

Not really. We decorate about 10% like we used to. Too fucking lazy to haul all that shit upstairs from the basement and just don't care about it anymore.

Oh I hear ya'll Ron. We have downsize quite a bit since I was growing up and even more since my parents moved from the main house to a trailer. Dad had some really cool tinsel garland and light combos that he would put up around the door frames in the living room, den and dining room where mom would hang most of her homemade ornaments from when I was a kid. This year is the first time we have done any hard core decorating since 2012. One year we didn't even do anything that year and my presents ended up on the recliner because of it.

Would you two send some of that lazy shit to the Mrs? She's decorating right now, and I did my part by putting up the outside lights. Damn, there won't be a flat surface anywhere in the house that doesn't have candy, Santa, or some other cheery shit on it. Hell, she even keeps old Christmas cards and artwork the kids made in pre-school.

Oh, one last rant--how many neighbors' "We whisk you a Merry Christmas" wire whisks do we need each year? The Jolly Boner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2016 07:56PM by BYU Boner.

Damn bro, I'd love too! We have tubs FULL of Christmas decorations in the basement...and they ain't moving!
Just this week we were talking about how bitchin' it would be to spend Christmas on Maui and/or Kauai...or at my sister's place in Yuma...and let somebody else do all the decorating. 2017 maybe?

RB

I'm on my way in becoming a Mrs. Jolly Boner! Sounds like my house.

My mom has been Mrs. Jolly all week. Other than putting the tree up and given her my opinion about things I haven't don't a thing in terms decorating. Even though I have been in a semi-festive mood, I just been to lazy to do anything about it other than listen to Christmas music.

Gonna put up the tree tomorrow. Got one of those 5 minutes to erect "instant" trees from the Hammacher-Schlemmer catalog. At least my wife and I don't fight about decorating the tree now like we used to.

RB

I love the trees that they have coming out with now especially the pre-lit trees. It took me 5 minutes to put our tree together and fluff it out. I remember the tree my parents had when I was growing up where you had to put the limbs on one by one and then put the lights on them afterwards. It took poor dad at least 2 days to put up before we could decorate it so by the time my parents brought our first pre-lit and found that it came in three pieces, we were much happier. Even taken 30 minutes to put up a tree was way better than the 2 days that it use to take.

I have a bunch of nativity decor and ornaments. Didn't use them last year. I'll probably get rid of them this year.

We have donated trees and decorations to those who have little or none. Brings some light into their lives.

RB



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2016 10:18AM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

No nativity scenes for us either - Santas from around the world decorate our home now and a lovely collection of reindeer too.

My wife has at least 5 nativity scenes but they've stayed in the basement for the last 2 Christmases.

RB

There's no one to tear the wings off the angel figures.

Have kept our Christmas decorations from years ago. They're in storage, though I haven't had them out for going on ten years or more. We decorated while my children were growing up. Not much at all these days.

Since 2006 when I began attending a Messianic synagogue with my daughter, and then switched it up to a full Jewish synagogue five years later, Christmas decorating has been shelved for about as long. Still love a colorful decoration or two in my home. Gone are the lights, and the boxes of ornaments. Too much work, and my kids aren't around to enjoy them. Of course I'd give my ornaments to my children if they wanted them. With one an Orthodox Jew, and the other an Atheist, neither has made claim to them.

Trying to keep Christmas in my heart. It's been a difficult year for me, but I still believe in the magic of Christmas, and the power of sharing.

I was hoping that you would put your two-cents in. If you mind my asking, do you do anything for Hanukkah?

I am not good at officially observing any traditional holiday, Jewish or Christian at this stage in my life. Christmas was something I've kept growing up, and through early adulthood & then motherhood.

When I bought back my Scotch pine Christmas tree from our annual sisterhood Jewish rummage sale, you should've seen the raised eyebrows! The women don't realize what it's like having grown up with the Christmas tradition. I'm a big sentimentalist at heart.

My Scotch pine is now back in my livingroom this year, after a decade in the garage.

I also have a menorah. I wasn't raised in the Jewish traditions, so that's hard for me to get immersed in them now. I'm more contemplative of what each holiday represents. Christmas is one of the most important Christian holidays. While Hannukah is a minor Jewish one. It seems that Judaism needed Hannukah to coincide with Christmas so Jewish children wouldn't feel deprived when their Christian classmates get presents for a day at Christmas. During Hannukah Jewish children get presents for eight days in a row!

:)

My 2nd grader came home from school telling me that she has a classmate who celebrates Hanukkah, and that we need to celebrate it so she can get 8 days of gifts. Since my daughter has zero religious or church experience, I think this year will be a great opportunity to learn and talk about Christianity and Judaism.

What church?

I left the Catholic Church and I don't decorate for Christmas. At all. I'm an atheist. What a waste of time. Felt so tied to all that crap all those years.

I did just buy a beautiful Christmas cactus today.

I have a purple tree and Catwoman ornaments, so I would say yes. :)

Itzpapalotl Wrote:
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> I have a purple tree and Catwoman ornaments, so I
> would say yes. :)


LOL I need a Like button for that one.

No $ spent on tithing means, among other things, that we can replace the burned-out lights on the reindeer. We may spring for a wreathe, too.

The extra cash will also go toward presents for the girls. They each get an envelope with cash, which might be a little fatter this year.

Finally we'll likely invite our neighbors (my in-laws) to dinner a couple times and splurge a little on the food.

In other words we'll be diverting the church's rightful lucre into all sorts of Satanic purposes: making the house festive, putting smiles on the kids' faces, feeding our family etc. I realize by doing so I'm risking not going to the quote-unquote Celestial Kingdom, but I'm just a daredevil, I guess.

I've been tapering off for years now with the decorations. Gave the nativity scene away. Just have a small tree for a table.Might do a little decorating this year, might not.
It's more about space and energy at this stage of my life.

We stopped getting a Christmas tree about 2 decades ago (too much work putting it up and taking it down, and irrelevant anyway). But this had more to do with age, not being LDS.

But LDS stuff I did take down were 4-or-5 framed pictures of muscle-men from the BofM "doing their thing" (which pictures were hanging in our hallway). (These were not only taken down by me, but gone forever.)

Being Christian, we do have a nativity set I put up on our piano top, and enjoy that very much. (Again, a Christian decoration, not "Mormon".) I bought this set sturdy (not delicate), so the kids could handle them without worry of breakage.

My handy husband built a Christian decoration for the porch: 4ft-tall candles (4 of them) with light bulbs for the "flame", and a curved wood "ribbon" sign over these with the word, "NOEL" on it. (And, with an automatic electric "on/off" switch for this, so we don't even have this chore to do.)

Again, my husband is still "active" (but stay-at home, due to his age), but our home teacher usually brings us a goodie at Christmas time that his wife makes for us.

In that my husband and I don't agree on Mormonism, we say very little along this line, but we are both Christians.

BTW: A man from church called us today to see about our setting a time to come in for "tithing settlement". I told him we were out of the running, as "We don't have transportation". Sounding embarrassed, he said this was "OK", and he understood. Took it well. (We live in CA, not Utah, so no door-to-door collections.)

Earlier, reg. monthly "tithing", I suggested to my husband that our being retired qualifies us more for the widow's mite donation, than the church's need for our money, and that we had already "taken our turn" when we able. So far, this seems to have satisfied him. We support ourselves, and the church will have to do the same without a contribution from us. The SLC church is RICH!!

Your post about the muscle men made me laugh.
That was one of the first things I noticed about the BOM, when I first read it: how good looking and buff the men were in it, especially young Nephi

I only decorated independently or with wife as an ex, but when I was a practicing Mormon living with parents we always had angels with wings and lots of candles like nonmos do so I guess nothing has changed for me. My wife and I had the battle of the angel versus the star on top of the tree, but now we have a living room and family room tree plus a kiddie tree, so there's room for both.

Not really but my daughter wanted to play some of her Christmas music. A song came on and my husband whispered that he thought it was the "Motab", which was ok but still felt uncomfortable to me.

Some things have changed. Brandi,rum and bourbon balls for the neighbors for Christmas. I still love Santa,Christmas carols, but have really simplified everything (it doesn't look like it but some careful planning, a smaller tree,and hard work about 10 years ago made putting together Christmas decorations, inside and out a one hour job.

I don't have any nativity scenes or ornaments.

I bought live poinsettias and a green fresh wreath for a nice smell.

I don't buy a tree or put up artificial tree.....I think I gave it away to my son several years ago.
I do like a wood tree with lights....it brightens up the living room.
And that's about it.

I have stuffed animals but need to donate them.....soon. Don't need to keep storing them for once a year use.

That's about it...........

I will send a few cards......and some happy new year's cards.
I love to stay in touch with old friends....some not on FB or social media.

AnonyMs

There were several Christmases in a row where my children and I decorated the tree w/beanie babies, when they were all the rage. Brings back some fond memories when they were young.

It's all about the winter solstice and Yule.

Most years I do a Yule tree (fake, not live). The Yule after my Mormon ex dumped me (partly over religion), I decorated it with Starbucks cups.
I have lots of candles inside and clear lights on the house because solstice is about the return of light after the shortest, darkest day of the year. Other decorating is minimalist and mostly from nature: pine cones, holly, and maybe some evergreen.

I usually light a Yule log, have a ritual, and then enjoy buche de Noel and homemade, buttered beer or rum-spiked eggnog.

The "tradition" I gave up after leaving mormonism was christmas. :)

My wife, a lukewarm catholic, comes from a country where the "tradition" is to decorate the church, not so much the homes. So she doesn't miss having the house all done up, it's not something she grew up with.

Years ago we made an agreement: we'd still do presents for the kids and to each other (nothing wrong with picking one day a year to show our love and appreciation with gifts), but not decorate the house...and we'd give what we would have spent decorating the house to a needy family. The local paper (this is a small town) gets lists of needy families from the various aid agencies, and then lets people pick one anonymously to give something to, and they act as the middle-man. It's a lot more useful than a house full of winter-looking stuff in SoCal that is only going to be up for a few weeks anyway :)

OK, that does it !
I'm putting only Atheist ornaments on my solstice conifer this year !

Since we ceased to be Christian in any way, my family and I decided to wean ourselves off Christmas gradually, doing one less Christmas tradition each year. First it was the lights outside the house, then the lights in the house, then the Christmas tree, then Christmas cards. The only things we are still doing are the presents, which is kind of obligatory in our culture and baking because it is delicious.

I see Christmas entirely as a cultural phenomenon, not in any way a religious one. But it seems to be less and less important every year.

Yeah. I don't decorate at all.

Christmas to me is as much of a cultural holiday as it is a religious holiday. I have a small pre-lit tree and a modest amount of decorations. Some decorations belonged to my parents. I have my parents' nativity scene along with one of my own. I have a new fireplace mantel this year which I am excited about decorating. Something old, something new!

I live alone and just hate the hassle of setting up a tree and ornaments and decorations around the house, but I've done it in the past because it was expected of me. Last year for the first time I said "no more." I don't need to decorate if I don't want to. Nobody else lives here, so nobody else has a vote. If they don't think it's festive, they can celebrate somewhere else.

Did it the first Christmas with my atheist wife (now former wife). We said, "What the f*/# are we doing this for?" Never did it since.

I used to bring out Christmas decorations hand made by my grandchildren who wrote "To the very best grandma in our family tree."

But now they've shunned us, so "to the very best grandma in our family tree" decorations have been put away.

Yes and No...my family puts up the nativity and stuff like always. My spaces have reindeer, snowflakes, cute winter woodland animals and my many dragon figurines have Santa hats. I like mine better it's whimsical and magical.

Yes - because after I resigned my wife divorced me and took most of the decorations we had. We had around 100 nativity sets and tons of lights.

Then I met my current partner. We own an antique store which we decorate a little.

At home we probably will not put up a tree as there is not enough room. We do have about 1000 santas, most 50+ years old, and a large collection of antique angels.

The only thing that's changed is that I start decorating on Black Friday, and that's because my narcissistic TBM ex-husband complained about lights and other decorations going up before his birthday, which is in the first week of December. By that, I mean everything except for the tree is put up, as the tree is done the second week of December, which will be this Saturday. I do have a couple of nativity scenes and the one with the angel has always had her wings.

I have a pre-lit tree which I like because it means I'm not untangling lights every year, although the bead garlands are somewhat difficult to deal with because my cat thinks they're his toys.

a little off topic. A favorite memory of me. My dad was local scoutmaster during the 1960's through to the 1970's. Every late November a friend last name Hopkins would deliver to our street address Byron Str. Trenton ON about 500 trees which we as a large family (ten) would sell. We had a hand made sign out by the street and christmas lights strewn round the front porch. Back then there were real winters with tons of snow. As kids we would make forts in the stacked 3 deep trees around the yard. Dad was a janitor at local schools and we'd deliver to all the local schools, community clubs and churches. The smell of all those pine, spruce and balsam including the one in our house is a memory that I'll cherish forever! By the way my brother and myself are happily resigned mormons. mERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!