I love having a tree during the winter holidays. But last year we were traveling, so we didn't decorate one. So this year, I'm making up for that by having two! 😅 One will be in the living room, but I also bought one of those slim kinds ("pencil" tree?) and that will go in the piano room. Hopefully I can have it in a spot that I can see from the bench.

Do you have a Christmas tree near your piano? If so please, share a pic!

I'll start. This is actually from the house we sold about 1.5 years ago, but it was the first time I had space to have a tree by the piano where I could actually see it. Actually this photo was taken in the first year that I bought my grand, and I remember how happy it made to have the piano there and the tree... 🙂

    Pallas I don’t remember seeing your room at this angle before

    This is our old house, we don’t live there anymore.

    But I haven’t decorated yet at our current house, so I thought I’d start the thread off with an old photo. 😊

    As for skinny trees, I think they can be quite nice! That’s my hope anyway, for my current piano room.

      Looks good! This was mine last year:

      Today the piano mover is coming to take my piano to the rebuilder where it will stay for a few months while I wait…

      ShiroKuro It's beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas!
      Thank you so much Shiro, that is spectacular - making me wish we didnt put up our tree in a different room.
      Your post is making me consider putting up a 2nd Tree!
      brdwyguy
      Joey

          brdwyguy Your post is making me consider putting up a 2nd Tree!

          Do it!!

            ShiroKuro Oh, what a lovely picture - the colour scheme of the tree compliments the chair and rug perfectly and the reflections of the lights on the piano and the windows are stunning. Pure class.

            @danno858 That's another beautiful picture, it's clear that Christmas trees and pianos go well together.

            "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

              I refuse to give in to the commercialism and have the decorations out before December starts. I'm always so tired of all the Christmass hype by the end of it that one month is enough.

                BartK Same here, Bart, no decorations in our home until December, but I do appreciate the lovely photos on this thread.

                "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

                    Nightowl Same here, Bart, no decorations in our home until December, but I do appreciate the lovely photos on this thread.

                    Sorry if I sounded like the Grinch in my last post. 😄 I appreciate the pictures too and I'll post some of my own in December.

                      You don’t take them down by New Years Eve, do ya??

                      Perpetual Beginner, Yamaha P115

                        @BartK I get that. For me, I want to enjoy the tree throughout December. But it takes a while to get things up (right now I finally go the trees set up, but no ornaments yet) and I like to have the tree up on Thanksgiving, so I usually start decorating during Thanksgiving week. But this year, I’m playing the concert the week of Thanksgiving, and my mother is coming, so I want to have the trees decorated by this coming Monday. Which means I started this week.

                        macuaig I always take my down by Jan 6th, which is the feast of the epiphany. If I have to work on the 6th, then the tree gets put away before then.

                          There’s commercialism, and then there’s personal enrichment, and one really has nothing to do with the other unless you choose it. I haven’t put up decorations in decades, but I’m in a new place, physically and enthusiastically, and I’ll be decorating next week. It’ll be well into January before I’ll be wanting a change of scenery. Roll the holiday cheer!

                          Perpetual Beginner, Yamaha P115

                          We don't bother to put up Christmas decorations in our living area because it's just us here, but it's kind of required to have them in the theatre lobby because we usually do a free admission movie for Santa Claus (with Santa coming to visit and so forth) so it would be kind of odd if there were no Christmas decorations.

                          I actually have four really unique and quite pretty two-foot snowflakes that look like they date back to sometime in the fifties that I hang over the candy counter (far enough back that the kids can't reach them). I found them in the basement here when I was cleaning out junk shortly after I bought the building thirty years back.

                          Gosh, thirty years now. I must be getting old....

                          --
                          If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!

                          Looking at those pictures makes me wanna play Charlie Brown Christmas music. 🙂

                            I usually wait until after Thanksgiving to set up a tree. My picture was from a Christmas Past like ShiroKuro!

                            Bellyman I have a great book of transcriptions of the music from the Charlie Brown Xmas show. I don't know who made them but they are really close to the originals....the one thing lacking is the piano accompaniment when the bass takes off for it's solo - it just gives bars of rest - and I'm not good enough by ear to pick out the chords

                                danno858, yeah, it kinda depends on the transcription. The original Charlie Brown music was a trio, piano / bass / drums. And often, transcriptions are trying to at least fill in an approximation of the piano and bass, sometimes more effectively than others, for piano solo.

                                Something else I find is that Vince did a lot of improv that I have a hard time getting my head wrapped around completely (and sometimes don't even like) but am more and more OK with that of late because I wanna be a good player in my own standing and not just a Vince mini-me, or an Oscar Peterson mini-me, or an Art Tatum mini-me. It's good to figure out, know, and maybe even be able to do something exactly as someone else did, there is value in that. But repeating it over and over exactly the same way? If I wanted to do that, I'd be playing classical music, and that, I do not do anymore. It doesn't take long, when playing a classical piece and playing it the way I feel it, before someone "good and proper" will tell me how "wrong" I'm doing it... (probably a bunny trail, and some won't agree with me)...

                                  There’s a guy in DC who brings his trio every season to a dinner music stage. As you’re finishing up your meal, they project the Charlie Brown Christmas tv show in its entirety, then the trio (piano, bass, drums) picks up for a full loose performance mix of that music and a bit more. When I saw them a few years ago, his young son came out for his first stage performance singing a couple of poignant holiday songs. It was a really lovely evening. I have friends coming in next weekend, and now I’ll be introducing them to the new tradition.

                                  Perpetual Beginner, Yamaha P115

                                  Are these real trees or artificial ones? I always cut a young tree from the back yard for Christmas (they grow like weeds so I usually only keep about 6 years worth of seedlings and saplings at various growth stages around), so it's a real one and it has not been engineered to not drop needles, or sap for that matter. Obviously I am loathed to put such a tree close to my piano. How do you protect from unwanted moisture and other problems?