O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Jen and Muti surveying the new addition

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blätter!

In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.

Bob and I bought our Christmas Tree today or as I like to think of it, our Solstice Tree. You see, we don’t identify ourselves as Christian, Jewish, Pagan, Buddhist, Atheist or anything else. We just are who we are -- we believe what we believe. And we like trees.

From History.com:

In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice.

The ancient Egyptians worshipped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from the illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death.

Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs.

In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life.

The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder.
...
But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.

Baby tree and gryphon

Ah just read the whole thing -- it’s fascinating and not long.

OK, even more truth -- Jen and I were the ones who went tree shopping. Our intention was to buy ONE coniferous baby but we came home with two.

I’d insisted on purchasing a live fir so that we can plant it come spring. She was down with that...of course. Her being a fellow Arborist Avenger and all.

How did we end up with a deuce? One for each house, natürlich! That and the store had just the two Blue Spuce’s left -- one quite small (just the right size for our wee cottage) and a larger one. You know, big enough for Skitter to climb.

Skitter, scaler of trees

I couldn’t buy Skitter's Spruce and not the young, height challenged one. It’d get all lonely -- have no one to be all blue/green with and shit.

You see, this same logic is how we end up with a porch full of furry, feline ferals each morning. It's the very same damned thinking -- feed one ya gotta feed them all. OK and they had the midget tree near the register so it was an impulse buy...like Chiclets, Hello Kitty napkins and People Magazine

Next step -- Christmas/Solstice/Saturnalia Lights!