I love Christmas – the lights (multi-color chaser lights are awesome! ESPECIALLY if you’re the only house in the neighborhood that has them next to all those white hanging icicle lights), the tree (see mine this year below), the ornaments (pretty glass ornaments in rainbow colors – my candy cane striped ornaments are gorgeous and so are the blue glass icicles), the festive mood / music (Silent Night, Jingle Bells, Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer) and wonderful treats (EGGNOG and FUDGE are my MOST favorite treats but chocolate covered cherries and hot chocolate come a VERY close second).
But I just saw and heard (from an email list I’m a member of) about the most bizarre thing that has suddenly become all the rage to have … an upside-down Christmas Tree – read the article here – the article is on the USA Today website. (I missed it but there was a brouhaha over the meaning of Sheryl Karas’ quotes being changed by words being deleted – you can read about that on her blog posts “Don’t Believe Everything You Read and More on Upside-down Christmas Tree.)
… well … to me, it is the ugliest thing I have ever seen … I didn’t know they were popular in the 12th century either … Sheryl Karas, author of The Solstice Evergreen: The History, Folklore and Origins of the Christmas Tree, quote from the USA Today article: “a 12th-century tradition in Central Europe” (www.sherylkaras.com).
I want to know why it was a tradition in the 12th century – I probably will need to read her book to find out. My next research project! This sounds fascinating to me!
“The Solstice Evergreen: History, Folklore and Origins of the Christmas Tree”
I really enjoyed the Introduction and “The Singing Fir Tree…a story from Switzerland” I read on her website – I think it will be a very interesting read – history buffs and thinking people may want to read it 
… I know I do!
To me, it is VERY disrespectful to a tree … a tree grows with the top growing upwards towards the sunlight … isn’t it bad enough that we chop them down to put in our living room for a few days before throwing them out as garbage or if they are really lucky, for mulch? Yes, I LOVE artificial Christmas trees – for several reasons … they are not as big a fire hazard as real trees inside a house … they don’t shed like real trees, they are re-usable and environment friendly – no one cuts down a million of them a year!
My Christmas Tree this year! My grandson decorated it and it is gorgeous!
As for being able to get more gifts under the tree, my daughter surrounds her tree with the presents (four kids, 3 adult grandparents and 2 parents plus many assorted friends & their children … that can be a lot of presents) … it looks very festive with all those lovely packages around it and the Christmas pictures of the tree with presents under and around it are a pleasingly pretty sight … not marred by seeing a tree upside down and jangling on your nerves because it seems so … abnormal. Or you could go get one that is flat that actually hangs on the wall … that is what a neighbor wanted to do when they sold their house and moved into an apartment.
There is a pine / evergreen … tree … bush … not sure … lovely …it is growing outside at the corner of the house … I decorate it with lights and garland … every year … if it is not cut down, I can enjoy it year after year after year … all year long in every season … not just once.
Okay, yes, I am now an official tree-hugger – I’ve announced it on the Net … what else would you expect from a landscape artist? Trees are things of beauty that last for so many generations – nature is hard on trees … people are much harder on trees … we cut them down … we make paper out of them … lumber … who knows what else …. we need to replace the trees and forests … many times I feel as if concrete is taking over the world and where will we get carbon monoxide turned back into oxygen from when all the plants are gone?
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