r/adhdwomen • u/JClurvesfries • 1d ago
Celebrating Success Now that we've agreed to leave the tree up all year, I feel better
It's not an embarrassment. It's not a sign of depression, burnout, or uncontrolled ADHD.
It's a piece of our home decor. It's a fun conversation piece. It's our CHOICE.
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u/JClurvesfries 1d ago
Weirdly, I've had friends over and not one of them, not even their kids, mentioned it. Maybe no one actually cares anyway.
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u/XilaMac 1d ago
My winter porch decorations got put away (aka moved to the garage but not put in the cabinet in which they go) 3 days ago. No one said anything. At some point I'm sure my spring/summer decor will make it's way out there.
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u/birdyheard 1d ago
just get a goose and dress it up as santa in winter and in a hawaiian shirt in summer. easy peasy
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u/ALittleBitOfToast 1d ago
This whole seasonal house decorating thing just seems like unnecessary labour to me. We don't do that here, most I'm doing is a Christmas tree if I can be bothered the week before.
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u/XilaMac 1d ago
I only do seasonal things on the porch because I use seasonal greenery and the spring/summer/fall there's usually live plants out there. Inside I only do Christmas and parties. There were several pieces of tape on a high ceiling for like 4 years from a party. Didn't come down until I painted the room last year.
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u/claricaposch 1d ago
The gal in the apartment across from me still has her fall leaves door mat out. The people next to me exclusively use a Halloween door mat. Nobody cares. 😅
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u/Leia1979 1d ago
I saw a house the other day with a 10-ft tall Halloween skeleton in the front yard. I figured they either really like it or don't have anywhere else to store it.
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u/anothergoodbook 1d ago
There’s one near my sisters house that just gets decorated for each holiday. It’s currently got a garland of Easter eggs between its hands lol.
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u/No-Commercial4151 1d ago
I am literally looking at our still decorated Christmas tree, standing proudly in our living room 😂
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u/katebot3000 1d ago
I still have my Christmas lights in the bushes out front. My parents say it looks tacky, I say it’s a pain in the ass to take them down and put them back up. I don’t have the spoons, so fuck it!
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u/JClurvesfries 1d ago
It's not tacky, it's now your regular yard decor.
Choose it, my sister. Choose peace!
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u/katebot3000 1d ago
Amen, sister! I’m having an absolutely shit time right now on all fronts, so Christmas lights are the least of my worries. I stand with you and your conversation piece!
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u/CorgiKnits 1d ago
Back in the apartment, I had one of those fake trees that are really, really skinny because we had a small space. We HATED taking that sucker down. Until eventually we realized that taking it down and putting it up was actually the problem.
So we got beautiful silver programmable LED lights for it, and decorations for seasons and holidays. Cheap crap, so we can just toss it in a labeled box, and pop open the next box. Year-round decorations :) And the LED lights make my brain soooo happy.
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u/gababouldie1213 1d ago
Last year I threw out my entire decorated tree out in April bc I didn’t feel like taking it down LOL… This year I bought a new one that came with lights on it and I didn’t put any ornaments… I moved it into my office like a month ago to leave it up year round. So liberating 😂 plus the lights give the office such a cozy vibe
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u/toebeantuesday 1d ago
For one, I don’t know about the rest of you but my sense of time is so badly effed up I feel like Christmas was just a few days ago.
And I suffer from seasonal depression so having the trees’ friendly lights is a comfort.
We also have a large house so we had multiple trees. We did take all but one down. There’s a slender tree that looks sort of like something you’d see in a rich person’s mansion. It’s in a gold resin pot and has white lights. I decided to leave it up.
Most house lighting in my house is very bright recessed task lighting. Or table top lamps. I find the light from the lamps a bit too conventional and frankly a bit depressing.
I’ve always preferred candle lights but with cats that’s not a good idea for me. So I love twinkle lights. I wrapped the banisters of our stairs in them. This is an idea I copied from a neighbor who also never has her 💩 together either. But she’s happy and she loves life so I take my inspiration from her rather than someone whose house is a bit more “together.”
Another reason I tend to lag in getting holiday decorations up and down is because our family keeps going through absolute 💩.
My late husband and I were primary caretakers and managers of both of our parents financial affairs and their medical care. I have no siblings and his siblings were not able to do much at the time for different reasons.
First my MIL died and we had to manage her possessions and distribute them then a couple of years later my FIL needed to be moved to more managed care. Then while we managed his move, my dad got very sick right before Christmas and went into the hospital. He and my mom didn’t live close. He died right after New Year’s Day.
We had to arrange for the care of the cats in their house and the strays in their yard. Then my mom got sick and went into the hospital for awhile and then we moved her into assisted living for awhile. The Christmas decorations we had stayed up well past Easter that year. I stuck a few Easter decorations up along with the Christmas ones.
We then had one normal Christmas and I got everything decorated and undecorated on a normal schedule.
My husband got sick a few months before Christmas 2023 while trying to settle everyone’s affairs and he died last spring and left me with everything to deal with all by myself. I had to immediately network and build myself a support system. As his caretaker I was stressed out putting up and taking down the Christmas decorations and got them down around Valentines Day to Easter.
I came down with many ailments myself. My daughter started wrestling with her mental health and her physical health. My mom started having serious problems with assisted living.
I had to sell my very busted up childhood home, move my mother in and take care of my daughter. That care included giving her a Christmas with all the trimmings this past Christmas. I absolutely did not want to celebrate or decorate. I wanted to just sit in my closet and cry. But it was also my mother’s first Christmas in my house as a resident here. I could not let either woman down. So I managed with my daughter’s help to get the stuff up and down. We were a bit late taking it down this year but not too horribly so.
I had to do all of this while trying to understand things I was never instructed on. And while battling depression and grief. I had to fight past ADHD avoidance and dive into financials, home repair and auto repair.
I had to do all of this within the space of less than a year. My husband died without a will and without being able to file taxes for us or our parents.
I have been struggling to gain access to accounts and authorizations so that I can get everything I need to file all the paperwork for all the 🤬 taxes. And this is while severe anxiety causes me to try and avoid the things I most need to do and only you who struggle with this same battle understand what this is like.
And I watch my daughter go through it. I tried to get her help and myself help and both of us got prescribed SSRI’s. Mine make me extremely suicidal. Fortunately that side effect seems to be fading. My daughter is afraid to take hers which is a stronger dose.
I have no income. I’ve been a SAHM for 20 years and was sick with autoimmune disease and quit my job a few years before I became a mom.
The recent events with the stock market have destroyed the investment accounts my husband worked and sacrificed to build for our future.
So if I leave a skinny twinkly tree up to keep me just happy enough not to drive off a bridge, then I am going to do it and anyone who wants to judge me for it can kiss my dragging a$$.
I apologize for my tone. I am so done with everything. The one thing that keeps me going is knowing so few people have it easy right now but they’re pulling themselves together and just getting on with things. If they can do it, I absolutely must. My heart goes out to the people who have lost so much in the various extreme weather and fire and earthquake events that have marched across our globe. My heart also goes out to the people who have lost their jobs and been impacted in other ways by our horrible economic struggles.
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u/toebeantuesday 1d ago
It’s okay Autobot. I’m fine! Every boundary or stumbling block that gets in my way is going to get kicked hard to the curb.
Just so everyone is clear on that.
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u/novaskyd 1d ago
Our tree is still up. I like it. I might just float the idea of keeping it all year. Such a hassle to put it up and down and like, why? It's pretty
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u/Hufflepuff_23 1d ago
I never even put one up. And the year before, it went up December 24. ADHD is hard
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u/cameandlurked 1d ago
Yep, this one. Too hard to put out seasonal items for so many reasons I just don’t now.
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u/Anonnymoose73 1d ago
One of my autistic friends leaves his tree up year round and just puts different themed decorations on it. It makes him and everyone who comes over feel happy :)
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u/Difficult_Affect_452 1d ago
I love the flair on this post.
My husband put everything away this year before February—except the mantle. We’ve had giant Christmas trees, a fucking Christmas gnome, and Christmas cards above our fireplace until today. It’s almost worse than if we’d had the tree up because it took maybe 3 minutes to finally put it away.
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u/CheerilyTerrified 1d ago
In my country there is a rule/superstition that you have to take Christmas decorations down on January 6th. Weirdly because it is an external motivation/deadline I find myself sticking to it. If it was my own deadline they'd be up until March.
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u/heatherstopit 1d ago
I really wanted to leave mine up too. It’s pink and it’s really dreamy and fun. Maybe next year!
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u/Jen10292020 1d ago
Kathy Hilton still had her Christmas trees up like a month ago in one of her posts. She and Paris have a lot of relatable ADHD symptoms/behaviors, little Easter eggs, if you will. If you know, you know. Not criticizing at all, in fact, I find them endearing.
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u/Own_Ad6901 1d ago
My tree is still up, well my 2 trees are because one tree is a live tree in a container and the other is a small string light weeping willow style Xmas tree and could easily pass as not an Xmas tree just a cool light up decoration.
I did however take the bows and ribbons off the trees but we still have all our indoor Xmas decorations out and I’ve just been slowly hiding them under the dining room table until my partner finally puts it all in storage—who knows how long that’ll actually take lol. He’s neurotypical but still has late/lazy tendencies like me.
I’ll move my live tree outside once it’s warm enough but I’m keeping my other light up tree up for the year, I just love the lighting it gives off
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u/Alternative_Care7806 1d ago
I hav my kids take the decorations off then I leave the lights on ..I love the nice warm light the tree makes..it’s so relaxing..I get to keep my tree up wit only lights until my partner finally forces me to take it down or she takes it down herself,usual I can get away with it until February
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u/Unknown_990 Diagnosed ADHD- C. 1d ago
I like the holidays, so i tend to leave up some Xmas decorations all season. If you like it then leave it up lol
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u/meaningfulsnotname 1d ago
Years ago my roommates and I kept up the fake Christmas tree up because it lit up the living room well. We were too cheap/lazy to shop for a decent lamp.
We still have the Christmas tree up at work too. It's in the break room with a rotation of seasonal decorations.
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u/whatdayoryear ADHD 1d ago
Still have our tree up, too! It’s lifting our spirits a little so we opted to leave it up.
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u/Thequiet01 1d ago
We don’t keep ours up because we do a live tree. We do leave some ornaments up in a doorway though - my mom collected bird ornaments and they look nice year round so they stay. I just add a green garland in the winter so it looks more Christmassy.
We also installed permanent lights on our front porch that we can just change the light colors on depending on the holiday.
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u/burnin8t0r 1d ago
I have mine up year round just with lights. Because it’s pretty and it’s a foil tree.
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u/mamaspatcher 1d ago
We know a couple who ended up in the same situation - not entirely sure why, but the resolution was the same. It became just something that periodically got the decor changed - summer, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Flag Day. It worked for them! I’m glad it’s working for you!!
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u/chainsofgold 1d ago
we just put ours away because our relatives who were here for christmas are coming over again
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u/saltandocean 1d ago
I just took my Christmas lights off my fence and tree by my door. Only reason is because I got a violation letter from my HOA lol.
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u/cloudshaper 1d ago
I keep mine up year round in our front window. It's a silver tree, covered in strings of Twinkly smart lights. We change the lighting to fit the season or mood!
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u/PaddlingDingo 1d ago
If I could bring myself to get a fake tree… this would be me. 🤣
But somehow my husband objects after the needles start falling off because I forgot to water it 🤣🤣🤣
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u/Creative-Fan-7599 1d ago
Growing up, my mom had a friend who hated taking the tree down/hated putting it up. She decided she was going to keep it up year round, and decorate it for each holiday.
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u/activelyresting 1d ago
When I was growing up we often had Xmas decorations (not just the tree, but tinsel and stuff all over the house) up to when we started decorating for the first birthday party of the year (which is in May in my family). One year I remember there still being some tinsel still up from the year before when we started putting up the tree in mid December.
Pretty sure my mum has ADHD
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u/tewong 1d ago
My tree was up from November 2023 to March 2025. Fuck, it could have even been 2022? I have no fucking clue lol. I only took it down now because we had a rental dumpster. It’s such a cumbersome pain in the ass to take down and it doesn’t fold up at ALL like it is supposed to so I just said throw the bitch in the dumpster and we’ll get another one. Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll do something weird and non traditional. We’ll be moving next year, so these will be the last major holidays in the home my children have lived in their entire lives. My kids have actually loved having the tree up year round. They are 16 and 17 and I’ve started to take it down a few times before and they’ve always protested. The Christmas lights at night are a nice cozy feel!
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u/claricaposch 1d ago
1000% on board with this!! I’m not hugely into Christmas and only got my first tree like 3ish years ago (I’m 32). I put my tree up for Christmas in 2023 and finally decided to take it down this past January. I did take the ornaments off, but I genuinely just love the lights. I spend a lot of my time with only mood lights on (obvi no big lights around here), and had it on a smart plug so it would turn on and off automatically. I only took it down because I’d recently done some rearranging and wanted to repurpose the space, so it’s back in the closet now.
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u/Distinct_Amount_6868 20h ago
My family kept our tree up in our basement for like 4 years. It's a fun memory!
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