O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree?
Today as I eagerly waded through my interactive dvd work, I thought about the upcoming (and past) holidays. As I internally debated the merits of buying my sister a fifty pack of Smurf car air fresheners this year for Christmas, I suddenly slammed headlong into a thought.
After I backed my train of thought up, the thing that I had tripped over became clear. It's one of those nagging questions that you have in the back of your mind, yet it never materializes into a question. But it has in mine, so I'm going to ask it.
Each year, to celebrate someone's birthday, were you aware that we travel out to our backyards, our nearby forests, our local tree lot, or, for the desensitized bloke in all of us, climb into our attic for that one thing that makes the season.
I'm talking about a Christmas tree.
Were you aware that to celebrate someone's birthday (some of us don't even know him, but we like his birthday anyway), we chop down a tree, wrap electric string with lights around it (a potential fire hazard), hang odd objects off of it, tacky garland, or, for some of us, strands of edible popcorn - all for someone's birtday?
What is the purpose of this? I understand the underlying idea behind gift giving - God knows that I really do love to give more than I like to recieve, but why the tree? What does that have to do with someone's birthday?
If someone finds out, let me know. But seeing as we do it for one birthday, I'm mandating that on my birthday we make it customary to mount a watermellon onto three two-by-fours.
Then my birthday can be the season of "The Watermellon TeePee".
posted by Jeremiah @ 16:07
5 Comments:
This is what howstuffworks.com had to say: This is a German tradition, started as early as 700 A.D. In the 1800s the tradition of a Christmas tree was widespread in Germany, then moved to England and then to America through Pennsylvanian German immigrants. In Victorian times, people had already started decorating trees with candies and cakes hung with ribbon. In 1880, Woolworths first sold manufactured Christmas tree ornaments, and they caught on very quickly. Martin Luther, in the 16th century, is credited as being the first person to put candles on a tree, and the first electrically lighted Christmas tree appeared in 1882. Calvin Coolidge in 1923 ceremoniously lit the first outdoor tree at the White House, starting that long tradition. Fake snow and tinsel... Who knows? It's probably related to the song "White Christmas" Does that help?
last comment I promise, but I found a better explaination: The fir tree has a long association with Christianity, it began in Germany almost a 1000 years ago when St Boniface, who converted the German people to Christianity, was said to have come across a group of pagans worshipping an oak tree. In anger, St Boniface is said to have cut down the oak tree and to his amazement a young fir tree sprung up from the roots of the oak tree. St Boniface took this as a sign of the Christian faith. But it was not until the 16th century that fir trees were brought indoors at Christmas time.
Please refrain from buying the smurf air fresheners. Otherwise I might have to tell mom that what you really want for Christmas is an Elton John compilation CD. WATCH OUT!!!
LOL well I had the answer for ya but Beth seems to have covered it! All that aside, it's something pretty and sparkly, and since i'm like a magpie and attracted to anything sparkly that makes it worthwhile. Just enjoy it. ;)
1.) "spoonerelli" is my sister - hereforeafter referred to as "Baby Sissy".
2.) I don't care what she says. Sissy loves air fresheners.
3.) I still think that God's gotta be up in heaven at christmas scratching his head thinking "What the heck?"
:)
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