Originally Posted by
kensington
I start about a week before Thanksgiving, getting it almost all done by then, and then, we go get the real tree and put it up. Upstairs, I have a walk in attic, and most of my trees, I put in there decorated, covered with bicycle bags and sheets. All my garlands and wreaths, hang on the walls. Many of my large display things go in there on shelves covered with plastic. So... that stuff comes out and sets up in a few days... then, I bust out the giant containers that holds the rest of it. I have a pic of my bedroom and bath somewhere... I need to hunt them up.
Storing it all gets to be a problem when you decorate extensively. We do the outdoor decorating real big for both Halloween and Christmas. At one point 3 rooms in our house were dedicated to storage rendering the rooms unusable. A year ago we bought a 45 foot semi trailer with the wheels cut off and had a crane set it in our back yard. With the addition of shelves down both sides, I finally have my guest room back along with a sewing room and one room in the house is still storage. It takes us 2 weeks to set up Christmas, the official lighting is always Thanksgiving day. Funny how it only takes 2 days to take it back down.