CIJ Christmas Through the Decades: 1980's- Decorations

[MrsSoup]

Welcome to Christmas in the 1980s!

While I was born in 1981, I remember many things about my childhood in the 80s and our holidays and traditions. We will begin our time in the 80s by discussing the decorating themes and trends.

When I was growing up, I remember that we always had a real tree. We would go to a tree farm, pick it out and cut it down ourselves. We did not decorate nearly as early as we do now, being that we had a real tree. We would decorate with family ornaments, handmade mostly or passed down. We made paper chains every year to decorate the tree and around the house. My favorite activity was the paper chains (I still have some from when I was little), and a set of wooden ornaments that came with glitter paint. They were all different shapes, and I can still remember them vividly to this day. I wish I could find them again. I would sit down in our garage at the workbench and craft.
We would also decorate our tree with tinsel. It’s not really a modern decoration these days, but back then it was on our tree every year. A huge fire hazard I’m sure, but it made the tree sparkle.

Ornaments that you may have had on your tree:

Foil Baubles- we never had these on our tree as we were pretty poor.

Satin Baubles- I vaguely remember these, we may have had some or my grandparents did.

Foil Garland- still around today and very useful for decorating around mantles or doorways. Some do still use it on their trees as well.

Fairy lights- not how we think of fairy lights today.

Glass Baubles- if you dropped one of these be prepared to clean up one heck of a mess. They would shatter into a million different pieces.


What was your favorite decoration from when you were little?

 

[Lori K]

In the early 1980s, we were just setting up our first home (we married in 1979 and bought our home in Oct. 1981, DD born in 1982). Those fairy lights -- how I remember those. Dare not drop one of the light covers and find it with your foot! Satin ornaments were very present on our first trees -- and stayed in our collection for many years, since they were not breakable and our DD could help with putting those on the tree. I still have some of the paper and crafty ornaments made by DD in her early years. So many memories flood back when going through those. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Holiday_Mom]

We had a number of the glass ornaments from when my dad was a kid. Every Christmas his mom gave us a box of plastic craft grid ornmanents that she made during the year. Then we added our homemade ornaments. The crowning touching: throwing fistfuls of tinsel on the tree. Amazingly, we'd find single strands of tinsel on the tree when we woke up the next morning.

 

[GrammaDeb]

In 1982 we moved to Southern Utah, outside of a small town (one stop light). Just after Thanksgiving we bought a permit, prayed for snow and that we wouldn't get stuck, and drove out into the foothills to find just the right tree. When we got the tree home it always had morphed into this huge thing that filled half of the living room! We had lots of colored twinkling lights (not those big lights of the 60s), some of those unbreakable balls, and lots of homemade ornaments. Every year something new, times 7 (everyone had to make one). Remember candy cane reindeers and popsicle stick sleds? The one year we strung popcorn was a huge disaster, there was popcorn everywhere. I bought the white porcelain nativity from Avon, one or two pieces each year (those pieces were expensive!) lovingly placed on a couple yards of dark blue velvet fabric - came home one night to find the little shepherd boy had been glued with a "sorry mom, we were playing in the house." I let the kids live, bought a new little shepherd, and always used the glued-back-together one. By the end of the 80s when we started putting lights outside on the house, we had a Great Dane who gleefully plucked off the light bulbs and then pulled down the strings of lights (from the eaves of the house) and dragged them around the yard. He was so lucky we loved him.

 

[jampss]

The '80's were the start of being an adult ... 17-27. I do recall all of those ornaments and especially those fairly lights and stepping on them! LOL Had forgot about those! And for us at home (after parents divorced) and for me later on my own ... it was artificial trees. DH and I started out with fake trees, but later for a few years when DD was 14 or so and DS 4 (2007 or so) ... we started for about 5-6 years going to a tree farm and cutting our tree down. Fun times!

Back to the '80's ... hmmmm, my fav ornaments or decor was ... probably in the late '80's I also painted a set of little wooden ornaments with the sparkly paint! I still have them today!!

 

[Minta]

Oh those Fairy Lights were my favorite lights on the tree growing up. How I miss those.

 

[MinnieCo]

I remember all of those decorations in the 80's. Isn't it funny how decorations trends take you back to a time in life!? In the mid to late 80's when Is started babysitting, I was making alot of money every week during a time when my parents were really struggling. I wanted a real tree so bad, I took some of my own money, went to Albertsons and bought a tree to bring home. I also wanted new decorations so the cheapest way to do that was to go to the fabric store and buy some ornament panels and I sewed a bunch of Red, White, and Green stuffed pieces for my tree. My love for red, white, and green tree decorating definitely started then. I still have a couple of those pillow type ornaments that I put on my tree decorated with only homemade ornaments....many of which are from the yearly CIJ swaps here. That tree has become my favorite the last couple years.