Josiah and Lauren 12: Usual Duggar Social Media and Drift

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

6 hours ago, Scrabblemaster said:

I won't take down Christmas stuff until it is absolutely necessary. The evening before the garbage collection comes to collect the trees together with organic waste (germany ) I will dedecorate the tree. And the rest will be put away whenever I am in the mood for it. Which means that this year I will be in the mood to put down that gorgeous Christmas mobile that hangs in our entry since December 1st 2017. I thought about it last August, but that was so close to Christmas so that I let it there. 

Taking the tree down is so sad, I love the festiveness and the pretty colors on the tree, once it is down all that is left is miserable cold gray weather that keeps you cooped up for days and days and just waiting for spring and the next 3 day weekend at the end of May.  At least here in the US in Iowa, where we don't have mountains for skiing or the warm beaches of the gulf southern ocean bordering states. 

As for pregnancy I really think Siren are going the Jinjer route and spending the 1st year or so getting to know each other before bringing in a baby.  I don't think either of them were ready for marriage but were rushed into it and waiting is a VERY wise choice they are both so young waiting at least a year or if they could wait 3 or 4 years like JB & M did  that would be even smarter. 

[WiseGirl]

5 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

My Christmas decorations come down around early February, when I finally notice it getting lighter.  I need the extra cheer till then. 

Mine too.  I live in a condo so the outside decorations come down, but my tree and anything with lights to keep the darkness away stay up until the end of January.  Then I put up Valentine's Day lights.

Oh, and there was no praying in the new year at the Wise house.  Instead, there was a lot of vodka and goodbye and good riddance to 2018 - don't let the door hit you on the way out (not the best year ever and really, really, really ended the worst way possible).

[VeryNikeSeamstress]

Lauren looks pretty, but I keep thinking that dress should be floor length with a white bonnet.

The internet needs to hurry up and release fresh info about season 3 of The Handmaid's Tale already!

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

4 minutes ago, VeryNikeSeamstress said:

Lauren looks pretty, but I keep thinking that dress should be floor length with a white bonnet.

The internet needs to hurry up and release fresh info about season 3 of The Handmaid's Tale already!

Or the Fundy mans guide to a happy life. 

[scoutsadie]

3 hours ago, WiseGirl said:

Mine too.  I live in a condo so the outside decorations come down, but my tree and anything with lights to keep the darkness away stay up until the end of January.  Then I put up Valentine's Day lights.

Oh, and there was no praying in the new year at the Wise house.  Instead, there was a lot of vodka and goodbye and good riddance to 2018 - don't let the door hit you on the way out (not the best year ever and really, really, really ended the worst way possible).

Yep, I will keep my inside holiday lights up for a few more weeks for the same reason. And I've been transitioning to more winter decorations as opposed to obviously "holiday" ones, so I can justify to my husband leaving them up for another month or two. 

*ETA @WiseGirl, I'm sorry last year ended badly for you. 2018 was quite hard for me, as well. Here's hoping this new year is much better!

[just_ordinary]

I feel there is some sort of trend on Social Media to take down the Christmas tree and decorations as fast as possible. Probably because some people put it all up when it’s almost still summer. It’s ridiculous in my opinion. The built up starts earlier and earlier and when the day/season finally arrives people are already over it. And they start with the next decoration theme (I saw lots of spring motives - winter isn’t even half over). People just seem to be unable to be patient and then be in the moment. 

I love the Christmas period. I love my decorations but there is no way it goes up before the 1st of December or 1st advent, whatever comes first. Trees were traditionally put up at Christmas Eve (when we celebrate Christmas in my country). We are a week early sometimes because we started hosting a Christmas party for friends five years ago. The tree is the final signal for Christmas. Most people take their trees down around the 6th of January. Epiphany is seen as the „official end“ of Christmas. The trees are put outside and get collected by the municipal disposal service.

When I see people putting everything up in October I wonder how they keep their tree alive. And I would be over the decorations too in December. But why not wait a little? I get wanting a clean house by New Years Eve but some people seem to take it down straight after Christmas dinner. 

Whatever. I am just annoyed by this trends on SM (taking the tree down asap and always be a season ahead).

I am going to enjoy our tree a few days longer and will leave some lights to comfort us as long as the long winter nights are here (we use just warm white light strings. No colours, no flashing no motives- that makes it easier to leave them out as long as summer.).

[TheMustardCardigan]

When I was growing up my mom would generally put away the Christmas decor any time between January 1-3 or so, depending on how busy we were. My family wasn’t particularly religious so I didn’t know what the Epiphany was until a friend in high school said that’s what her mom waited for before she took down their Christmas lights.

This year was the first year I had full-on decor at my house (tree, other indoor decorations, and outdoor lights and decorations). Tree is down as of last night. Everything else will be in the next couple days. With the tree we don’t really have the option of keeping it far after Christmas because we do a real tree. They start to get very dried out after too long.

I am always sad to see the Christmas season go, even though I live in FL so I don’t have the same problems of dreary weather that some of you do. While the decorations are up I try to enjoy them as much as possible. 

[Jilli]

My father takes everything down on January 1 like clockwork, Christmas random stuff usually stays in the living room until sometime in spring. I barely decorate, don’t like changing things based on date.

[Flossie]

5 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

When I see people putting everything up in October I wonder how they keep their tree alive. And I would be over the decorations too in December. But why not wait a little? I get wanting a clean house by New Years Eve but some people seem to take it down straight after Christmas dinner. 

I had a friend who got really excited for Christmas so she bought a tree right after Thanksgiving.  A few weeks later it was obviously too dry to stay, so she took it down and got another tree.  She had to get another just before Christmas.  Their annual burning of the Christmas tree that year (some family thing that always happened on New Years Day) was a bonfire instead. 

[Marly]

Don't they water the tree then? Or does it get too dry due to airconditioning/heating? 
I've never seen a real tree become dry. My parents always have a real tree, and they water it daily. They don't put it up before December 10th though, so it might be that they just don't have it inside long enough for it to become dry.

[HereticHick]

This is Josiah's first time having a Christmas tree, I believe.

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

We get a real tree every year, we get it the weekend after Thanksgiving and only once did it get dry to the point we had to take it down the day after Christmas. Our tree usually comes down the 1st weekend in January, it will come down this weekend, so we keep a tree up for 5/6 weeks depending on how early Thanksgiving is.  If you water the tree daily or in our case several times a day, it will keep just fine.

My mom's fake tree goes up the 1st weekend in December and comes down the day after Christmas or sometimes Christmas day because she can't stand the clutter. When we were growing up the tree went up mid December and came down the day after the Catholic holiday, I think it is called Epiphany? I was a terrible Catholic so I'm not 100% certain. 

[Coconut Flan]

The Duggars have trees.  They have been seen in various videos over the years.  The one this year was in a corner of their cavern and can been in the background of some of the Christmas photos. 

[obiwanfreak]

I take down the Christmas decorations very early.  My daughter's birthday is in early January and we like to have some sort of separation between the two.

[VelociRapture]

We decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving and take stuff down January 1. This year we also did a lot of pre-Tax Season cleaning on the 1st too, which was awesome. Our toddler was an early December surprise and she really likes our tree and decorations right now, so we don’t feel bad about having them up during her birthday. If she eventually ends up wanting some separation between the two then we’d be fine waiting until after her birthday to decorate.  

8 minutes ago, obiwanfreak said:

I take down the Christmas decorations very early.  My daughter's birthday is in early January and we like to have some sort of separation between the two.

Happy (soon to be) birthday to your daughter!

[front hugs > duggs]

Early January baby here too as well (the 8th!). My brother has an early December birthday, and we grew up doing both Chanukkah and Christmas (ish). I personally hated it as a kid, and still don't love it now that I married a non-Jew and still celebrate both holidays to some extent. This sounds super bratty and greedy, but the holiday season turned into "here's your Christma-birthday-kkah gift! and none for front hugs for the next 12 months". 

[Vivi_music]

2 hours ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

My mom's fake tree goes up the 1st weekend in December and comes down the day after Christmas or sometimes Christmas day because she can't stand the clutter. When we were growing up the tree went up mid December and came down the day after the Catholic holiday, I think it is called Epiphany? I was a terrible Catholic so I'm not 100% certain.  

Yeah my family is also ''traditonally Catholic but not that strictly religious anymore'' and we usually wait until the weekend closesest to Epiphany to take down the Christmas stuff (or we also call it Three King's day or Feast).

Ironically, we used to do nothing for Epiphany for many years until my siblings starting having kids. Since my mother became a grandma, she is back to buying a galette des Rois (kings' cake) and we play the whole thing where someone finds the little trinket and is named ''king'' or ''queen'' for the day. It is fun with the kids TBH.

 

 

[SorenaJ]

We take down the Christmas decorations the 27th December. Christmas is over, done with, I don't wanna look at elves anymore. We do leave the outdoor lights up, though. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

1 hour ago, VelociRapture said:

We decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving and take stuff down January 1. This year we also did a lot of pre-Tax Season cleaning on the 1st too, which was awesome. Our toddler was an early December surprise and she really likes our tree and decorations right now, so we don’t feel bad about having them up during her birthday. If she eventually ends up wanting some separation between the two then we’d be fine waiting until after her birthday to decorate.  

Happy (soon to be) birthday to your daughter!

I have a friend who's daughter b-day is Dec 14 and they didn't decorate until after her B-day. The daughter just turned 19 and begged her mom to put the tree up right after Thanksgiving this year as she wants it up longer. So they may start doing it sooner now. I have a friend who's bday is Dec 13th and they always up the tree up the 1st week of December and like good Catholics took it down after Epiphany. 

[Sullie06]

We get a live tree every year so we typically put our tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving or the first weekend of December. We don't want to get the tree to early and have it die but also if we wait the tree selection is not great, especially the last few years due to a local tree shortage. 

We take the indoor decorations down the first couple weekends of January after the New Year. It really depends on how the tree is holding up. But we try to wait until after the Epiphany. Outdoor lights we often leave up until the spring, though we stop turning them on by mid January. It's to cold here to be messing around with the lights this time of year. We also usually put them up late fall but we don't turn them on until after Thanksgiving. 

[libgirl2]

On 1/1/2019 at 12:58 PM, lumpentheologie said:

My Christmas decorations come down around early February, when I finally notice it getting lighter.  I need the extra cheer till then. 

But in general I see no reason to stop celebrating seasonal holidays just because the official day has passed--I finally got around to carving my Halloween pumpkin just before Thanksgiving this year. ?

Mine all came down yesterday. Normally I wait but our new kitten has had us on tree alert all season. 

[louisa05]

1 hour ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

I have a friend who's daughter b-day is Dec 14 and they didn't decorate until after her B-day. The daughter just turned 19 and begged her mom to put the tree up right after Thanksgiving this year as she wants it up longer. So they may start doing it sooner now. I have a friend who's bday is Dec 13th and they always up the tree up the 1st week of December and like good Catholics took it down after Epiphany. 

My brother is Dec 15. For his first birthday, my dad's parents showed up and put his present, wrapped in Christmas wrapping, under the tree and informed them it was a combo present to be opened on Christmas. They decided to try to separate the two after that. 

So I grew up with the tree never up until sometime after the 15th. Mom's is up earlier sometimes now because it just depends on when we are able to help her with it. But we all give him a separate gift wrapped in b-day paper. I didn't see him until the family Christmas this year, so we had him open his b-day gift right away to separate it from the Christmas stuff. 

We have always taken ours down on January 1. I talked Mr. 05 into waiting for this weekend for Epiphany this year. I like it better that way. Christmas is not one day. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

@louisa05 My sister had a co-worker who's daughter was born December 23rd, and the daughter was working their part time during her break from college so on her birthday the office got her a cake and some small birthday gifts. She was turning 20 and my sister said she burst into tears, she said she's never had a birthday cake or birthday presents before since her birthday was so close to Christmas they just celebrated it on Christmas day w/ combo gifts.  My sister said co-workers kind of laid into mom about how shitty that was. That was 20 years ago and my sister is still friends with her, and she now makes a HUGE deal out of her birthday and her husband and kids KNOW better than to wrap her gifts in Christmas paper. 

I have another friend who's sons birthday is NYE, they have a small family party on his birthday every year, but have a 1/2 birthday party the last Saturday in June every year for his friends. Well they did when he was younger he's 19 now and he had his birthday party on his birthday this year, since his friends are now old enough to party on New Years. 

[libgirl2]

6 minutes ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

@louisa05 My sister had a co-worker who's daughter was born December 23rd, and the daughter was working their part time during her break from college so on her birthday the office got her a cake and some small birthday gifts. She was turning 20 and my sister said she burst into tears, she said she's never had a birthday cake or birthday presents before since her birthday was so close to Christmas they just celebrated it on Christmas day w/ combo gifts.  My sister said co-workers kind of laid into mom about how shitty that was. That was 20 years ago and my sister is still friends with her, and she now makes a HUGE deal out of her birthday and her husband and kids KNOW better than to wrap her gifts in Christmas paper. 

I have another friend who's sons birthday is NYE, they have a small family party on his birthday every year, but have a 1/2 birthday party the last Saturday in June every year for his friends. Well they did when he was younger he's 19 now and he had his birthday party on his birthday this year, since his friends are now old enough to party on New Years. 

My cousin's son's birthday is the 25th. My husband's the 27th as is my cousin (another cousin). 

[Ali]

My brother has a birthday near Christmas. The family made sure to always try to make it special for him and make sure it was separate from Christmas. My son has a January birthday and so far no one has been jerky enough to give him a combined gift.