So Martha Stewart here puts up TWO trees. I keep telling her to only do one but she won't listen to reasoning.
This is the year a set of lights on her second tree isn't working which means we're eating dry turkey sandwiches for dinner since she won't stop messing with the bulbs and fuses. And she is edgy and I can't go to bed for another 4 hours or she will complain more..........and she hasn't even started her Christmas cards or cookies yet.
How is your wife doing?
Datsun310Guy wrote: So Martha Stewart here puts up TWO trees. I keep telling her to only do one but she won't listen to reasoning.
LOL
How is your wife doing?
"We" put only one tree up, and a crapload of lights outside. I say "we" because she tells me we have to put up the lights/tree but it means I have to do it. The kids help for a couple of minutes and then they take out the bicycles and dissapear.
I came to make a bi-anal joke
My wife would rather just skip Christmas altogether . I refuse to play along.
The tree is up, 25% of the lights have already died and they will stay that way. The bubble lights are working and that's all I care about. It's leaning in the direction of the wall but that's a good thing. It won't hit anyone when it falls. The outside lights are in the box on the front porch. I'm hoping someone will steal them soon. They aren't going up this year unless the thief puts them on his house.
I got my outside lights up last weekend after saying screw it to the icicle lights that I gave to my neighbor I went to wally world and bought regular ones. Also made a xmas "tree" out of a 2.50 string of lights, zip ties, and a tomato cage. Good enough. No tree or decorations inside this year, oh well.
We got our tree up last weekend. I plugged it up and all worked well. I stuck my hand in to adjust one of the "branches" and apparently one of the bulbs had broken and I touched the bare wires with my finger completing the circuit.
The lesson is don't stick your hand into the tree while it's plugged in.
Got a live tree from the nursery down the road last weekend and got it put up on Monday. Hung the outside lights, put up the nativity set, put the little artificial tree up above the entryway, and did a few other little interior Christmasy things like kitchen towels, tablecloths, and stuff on Thursday while the wife had the kids at basketball. I just kicked her out of the house to go have some drinks with her friends and I might do some lights and garland on the balcony and staircase before she gets home.
What can I say, I love Christmas!
I put up the tree last week just to find out all 4 sets of lights that go on it are dead.
So I go to the store to buy lights, buy the same amount I've always had and find out the weren't enough. Luckily I had an extra box from 2 years ago when I overbought lights the last time this happened.
We're pretending to be Jewish this Xmas. No lights, no tree, no decorations. It's easy when the kid is grown and gone and the wife is really not interested. For Hanukkah we'll find our Christian roots again. 
Bah humbug!
Seriously though, she won't let me put up the aluminum tree with the bubble-lights on it. She thinks it's "tacky"...and pretty much thinks that about all my ideas. 
So my involvement in decorating for xmas consists of dragging all the crap down from upstairs, and hauling it back upstairs whenever she gets around to packing it up after the holidays.
The answer is Festivus Pole.
It's made from aluminum. Very high strength-to-weight ratio.
After the celebration is over, it is not uncommon for a pole to be placed in an out-of-the-way place, such as a crawl space.
My dad, a man who was in many ways ahead of his time (for instance, he was Hank Hill before there WAS a Hank Hill), rebelled one year in the '80s and stood up a shower curtain rod, decorated it with lights, tinsel and garland, and called it the Christmas pole. He put all our gifts under it and was so happy, it slid its way into Christmas lore in our family, right alongside the year he got pissed at the lousy tree stand and used 2x4s to "nail that motherberkeleyer to the goddamn wall."
Overall, I believe he "got" Christmas better than most.
We put up a tree the day after Thanksgiving and take it down the evening before we go to my in-laws for Christmas. My wife and kids love it. I tolerate it. I vary how many lights I put up outside to keep my wife off guard. She expects me to do almost nothing because I'm grumpy, so when I put up a few extra strands she's all happy. We both win. Her parents house is a whole different ball game. I love those people, but I feel like an alien at Christmas time.
SWMBO put up the life-like Christmas-like fake tree I got off the side of the road in college. This was accomplished with minor help from me after Thanksgiving. I have resisted thus far putting up much outside decoration. I have been informed next year we are going all-in on decorations outside, only time will tell.
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