Christmas Trees Confuse Me
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
Thousands of years ago, people in east Europe thought that evergreen trees had magic powers and that this is what enabled them to stay green throughout the winter. They thought that by bringing a bow of the tree into their homes, they would benefit from the tree's magic powers.
Yep, you got it. :thumbsup: The practice of fostering nature is fundamental to people who practice Paganism. I have to wonder if Christmas trees would exist without the Pagans. It's funny that Pagan customs are embraced during a Christian holiday.
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
Thousands of years ago, people in east Europe thought that evergreen trees had magic powers and that this is what enabled them to stay green throughout the winter. They thought that by bringing a bow of the tree into their homes, they would benefit from the tree's magic powers.
Yep, you got it. :thumbsup: The practice of fostering nature is fundamental to people who practice Paganism. I have to wonder if Christmas trees would exist without the Pagans. It's funny that Pagan customs are embraced during a Christian holiday.
If you go to "Christian" societies in Africa, you might be surprised by how much of the old tribal religions has been integrated into Christian practices, and are still alive today. They call themselves Christians (well, I guess that they have no choice, if they want to interact with white man), but lots of their practices would not be accepted in a Western all-white church. That is not only Africa. Even in North America will natives, living their daily lives in a modern, industrialized society, honor sprits and powers that are remote from the Bible. They practice their transition rites from child to adult, with a lot of religious elements, and the religion is not Christianity. You will find the same in Latin and South America: Even if the village has a church, and the village people attend it, there are plenty of rituals of religious nature outside the church, both in a physical and religious sense. In Norway, it was discovered in the late 1800s, that high up in a valley (Setesdalen, if my memory is correct), there were still people making sacrifice to the old Norse gods, like Odin ant Thor. They knew very well that the Christian church was much against it, so they had kept it secret for several hundred years, but continued the practice until it was discovered. As they rightfully feared: The practice was forced to stop. Freedom of religion does not go as far as to making sacrifices to Odin and Thor.
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Steve Raw wrote:
Set a few chickens on fire and watch them run around the living room in a ball of flames.
Why not go whole hog, and set a pig on fire? Roasting meat smells a lot better than burning feathers. :) (For the humour-impaired, I certainly do not advocate burning pigs, chickens, or any other creature alive)
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
For the serious side: Have you ever tried yourself, or been to a party where they roast a whole pig? Or lamb, or calf or whatever? It takes a long, long time to roast it! With lots of intense heat. If you are talking about a small piglet, it can be baked at moderate temperature for a few hours, but for a large hog, you will probably cut off slices as they have been roasted, to let the heat in to the meat that is not yet done. Roasting a pig over a bed of charcoal is suitable for a celebration that runs all day, with people coming to have their serving(s) over a period of many hours.
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Tomorrow night I will celebrate Sunturn (aka. winter solstice) with friends, the way we have done the last 15-20 years. This year we have to stay up late: The exact time for lifting our glasses is past midnight, at UTC 3:28 (which is 4:38 local time). Every year we watch the "Rare Exports Inc." movie - if you haven't seen it, try to get an opportunity to. It is great! For Easter, there is less discussion about the right season, although Jews and Christians differ in their ways to calculate it, so the celebrations may be weeks apart. But then: The reasons for celebration is quite different in the two religions, so there is no logical reason why they should be synchronized. But: The great majority of cultures that experience any sort of winter season, has celebrated some sort of "spring feast", that nature and life wakes up again. Here in Norway, Easter never (at least for the last three generations) was considered a great religious feast. Even in my childhood, everybody went to church at Christmas, noone at Easter, except for those who go every Sunday. People go up in the mountains to ski on the last remains of snow. In the south, they take their boat out on the fjord. Ask kids what they think of as "Easter symbols": They will say "Chickens!" Eggs. Marzipan. Branches of sprouting birch and pussy willow - the Norwegian word for catkins is "goslings", known by any four-year-old to be an important element of Easter. While there are still people around here trying to claim Youle as a Christian celebration - they are fewer ever year - I can't remember anyone claiming monopoly on Easter as a religious feast. Even going back to my grandparents and great grandparents, photo albums and that sort of things have no indications of any church activity, but lots about skiing, cottage life, boat trips to the small islands. Another celebration: I spent a year in the USA when 17-18 years old, as was surprised that they celebrated new year as a religious feast. I had never heard of that in Norway, not a word in that direction. So I asked what made it a reason to celebrate, an was met with a strange look: Don't you know? Don't you know that it is Jesus' Circumcision Day? I have to admit: I had never ever heard that mentioned before, and here in Norway, not until this day. It must be said that circumcision was practically unknown in Norway at that time; I knew it as word when I was a boy, but when someone told me, at around 10-12 years, what it really meant, I first refused to believe it, that anyone
Celebrating Jesus' circumcision day is something I never heard of before. It strikes me as odd, but then most religious customs seem odd to non-believers. Re Christmas/Yule/Sunturn/Saturnalia/..., this just reinforces my point that early Christians simply repurposed an existing holiday. There is an intimate tie between Easter and Passover (Pesach, in Hebrew). The date of Easter is calculated as the Sunday after the first full moon after March 21. But wait - this is not the real moon, but a calculated moon known as the Paschal moon. In Hebrew, Easter is known as Pascha, obviously from the same root.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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For the serious side: Have you ever tried yourself, or been to a party where they roast a whole pig? Or lamb, or calf or whatever? It takes a long, long time to roast it! With lots of intense heat. If you are talking about a small piglet, it can be baked at moderate temperature for a few hours, but for a large hog, you will probably cut off slices as they have been roasted, to let the heat in to the meat that is not yet done. Roasting a pig over a bed of charcoal is suitable for a celebration that runs all day, with people coming to have their serving(s) over a period of many hours.
I sit corrected. :)
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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UK is the only country I know of which (often) has fuses in the socket. (And the only country to use those huge sockets fuse or not.) The common solution is to have a central fuse box - that is, in the other end of the cable. It doesn't make that much difference. Except that the central fuse is dimensioned according to the cable running to the socket, to keep it from overheating and causing a fire. If there were no central fuse, and the cabling was 1.5 sqmm (capable of handling 10 A), then you plug in a 4 kW heater with a 20 A fuse, this fuse will not prevent the cable up to the socket from overheating. So I guess that you have a central fuse box as well. Then you have a cable (from the fuse box to the socket with one fuse in each end. Having fuses in both ends won't prevent that many fires compared to a cable with only a fuse in the central end. This plug with a fuse is/was closely associated with the "ring circuit" wiring layout, which is something else I have never heard of outside the UK. The British plug does have its advantages over Schuko, say, used in most European countries. One is the the mechanical strength. Compare it to the original USB B plug compared to mini, micro and C plugs - people rejected the B plug, crying for something smaller and more lightweight. Another: It is polarized - the Schuko (as well as the ungrounded US plug) is not, even though the most common power supply ("TN") is asymmetric: One pin is "live", the other is "neutral". If you turn the plug 180 degrees around, live and neutral switches, on the plug side. So you really should always use two-pole switches on the plug side; they are almost always single-pole. So I am not too exited about neither Schuko or the US plug, we should have learn some lessons from the UK, but without adopting that strange "ring circuit" layout and the cast iron (or is it lead?) plugs.
trønderen wrote:
UK is the only country I know of which (often) has fuses in the socket. (And the only country to use those huge sockets fuse or not.)
My mother-in-law's house in South Africa also used giant plugs, albeit of a design different to the British standard (three round prongs, with the ground larger than the other two). I understand that the modern South African standard uses something closer to the European standard. I don't remember off-hand whether the sockets were fused.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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UK is the only country I know of which (often) has fuses in the socket. (And the only country to use those huge sockets fuse or not.) The common solution is to have a central fuse box - that is, in the other end of the cable. It doesn't make that much difference. Except that the central fuse is dimensioned according to the cable running to the socket, to keep it from overheating and causing a fire. If there were no central fuse, and the cabling was 1.5 sqmm (capable of handling 10 A), then you plug in a 4 kW heater with a 20 A fuse, this fuse will not prevent the cable up to the socket from overheating. So I guess that you have a central fuse box as well. Then you have a cable (from the fuse box to the socket with one fuse in each end. Having fuses in both ends won't prevent that many fires compared to a cable with only a fuse in the central end. This plug with a fuse is/was closely associated with the "ring circuit" wiring layout, which is something else I have never heard of outside the UK. The British plug does have its advantages over Schuko, say, used in most European countries. One is the the mechanical strength. Compare it to the original USB B plug compared to mini, micro and C plugs - people rejected the B plug, crying for something smaller and more lightweight. Another: It is polarized - the Schuko (as well as the ungrounded US plug) is not, even though the most common power supply ("TN") is asymmetric: One pin is "live", the other is "neutral". If you turn the plug 180 degrees around, live and neutral switches, on the plug side. So you really should always use two-pole switches on the plug side; they are almost always single-pole. So I am not too exited about neither Schuko or the US plug, we should have learn some lessons from the UK, but without adopting that strange "ring circuit" layout and the cast iron (or is it lead?) plugs.
Have you ever broke a Schuko? Never wear down a mini, micro or C USB plug yet (mostly plugging C these days as headphones changed connector), but B, used mainly for printers, placed on the back of the printer, multiply the pain of the fractional dimension of the A by two.
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I am thinking I need to buy one of those car scent products shaped like a tree that people hang on their rear view mirror and hide it in my artificial tree.
Those smell horrible. Very artificial, chemical smell. Bad idea.
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Do you ever take a step back and think about the idea of a Christmas tree? I know why it all started. That makes sense to me. What I don't understand is why a person would go chop down some perfectly good tree, drag it into their house, stand it upright in a bowl of water, and wrap it with several yards of electrical wire. Why not just drive your car into your house? The electrical plugs are two-pronged and haven't a ground connection. There's no fuse. We need to remember that the tree is standing in a metal bowl of water. You can call me an idiot. People do it all the time. Regardless, I think a fuse and ground connection might come in useful. You're wrapping a flammable plant in electrical wire that's surging with 120 volts of electricity. The whole thing is precariously braced upright by 3 screws anchored to a metal bowl filled with water, and it's inside your house. Christmas trees are dangerous. I'll bet there's an existing term for the phobia of Christmas trees. I haven't a clue as to what the term could be. That's a difficult one. Any ideas? The question I can't answer is, why? Does it symbolize something? What meaning does it have, and what amount of importance supports that meaning? There must be something that compels people to spend time and effort on such a perplexing activity. Is it worth getting electrocuted over? Is it so important that you're willing to let your house burn down? Why kill trees? It doesn't need to be chopped down. Just go outside, find a tree, and decorate it with shiny objects. I don't understand it. :wtf:
Very good, brightened my day. Christougenniatikphobia, you're welcome (of _course_ there's a name for it! No idea how you say it though, not gonna try). [https://discover.hubpages.com/holidays/Christmas-Phobias\](https://discover.hubpages.com/holidays/Christmas-Phobias) > You can call me an idiot Don't tempt me! 🤣 Cheers.
Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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Do you ever take a step back and think about the idea of a Christmas tree? I know why it all started. That makes sense to me. What I don't understand is why a person would go chop down some perfectly good tree, drag it into their house, stand it upright in a bowl of water, and wrap it with several yards of electrical wire. Why not just drive your car into your house? The electrical plugs are two-pronged and haven't a ground connection. There's no fuse. We need to remember that the tree is standing in a metal bowl of water. You can call me an idiot. People do it all the time. Regardless, I think a fuse and ground connection might come in useful. You're wrapping a flammable plant in electrical wire that's surging with 120 volts of electricity. The whole thing is precariously braced upright by 3 screws anchored to a metal bowl filled with water, and it's inside your house. Christmas trees are dangerous. I'll bet there's an existing term for the phobia of Christmas trees. I haven't a clue as to what the term could be. That's a difficult one. Any ideas? The question I can't answer is, why? Does it symbolize something? What meaning does it have, and what amount of importance supports that meaning? There must be something that compels people to spend time and effort on such a perplexing activity. Is it worth getting electrocuted over? Is it so important that you're willing to let your house burn down? Why kill trees? It doesn't need to be chopped down. Just go outside, find a tree, and decorate it with shiny objects. I don't understand it. :wtf:
I switched to an artificial tree many years ago. :cool: No more needless killing of the only thing that gives us breathable air. (I know algae are helping as well) It has 500 LED lights build in, sets up in under an hour, and looks good. It doesn't have the 'smell' but at least it doesn't interfere with the Christmas cooking. Stop killing our friends, they deserve life too.
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Do you ever take a step back and think about the idea of a Christmas tree? I know why it all started. That makes sense to me. What I don't understand is why a person would go chop down some perfectly good tree, drag it into their house, stand it upright in a bowl of water, and wrap it with several yards of electrical wire. Why not just drive your car into your house? The electrical plugs are two-pronged and haven't a ground connection. There's no fuse. We need to remember that the tree is standing in a metal bowl of water. You can call me an idiot. People do it all the time. Regardless, I think a fuse and ground connection might come in useful. You're wrapping a flammable plant in electrical wire that's surging with 120 volts of electricity. The whole thing is precariously braced upright by 3 screws anchored to a metal bowl filled with water, and it's inside your house. Christmas trees are dangerous. I'll bet there's an existing term for the phobia of Christmas trees. I haven't a clue as to what the term could be. That's a difficult one. Any ideas? The question I can't answer is, why? Does it symbolize something? What meaning does it have, and what amount of importance supports that meaning? There must be something that compels people to spend time and effort on such a perplexing activity. Is it worth getting electrocuted over? Is it so important that you're willing to let your house burn down? Why kill trees? It doesn't need to be chopped down. Just go outside, find a tree, and decorate it with shiny objects. I don't understand it. :wtf:
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Regardless, I think a fuse and ground connection might come in useful.
Grounding, certainly - it will prevent electrocution of people touching the tree in the event that a live wire closes a circuit with the tree. Fuse? Not so much. It can't prevent a fire started by arcing because the arc will jump before the fuse is involved, hence a fuse is not going to help with arcing. It can't prevent a fire from a non-arc short because your house's breaker will trip before the element in question heats up enough to start a fire (breakers typically trip within milliseconds of overcurrent). After all, with almost 100m American households having a flammable[1] tree at christmas, it's still almost unheard of for house-fire statistics to rise in December. In fact, I don't think they ever did! So the dangers are less than one would think (numbers don't lie).
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The question I can't answer is, why? Does it symbolize something? What meaning does it have, and what amount of importance supports that meaning?
Why do modern people do it? Because tradition! Why did the tradition arise? Because, in order to propagate, Christianity leaders chose existing holy days as christian holy days (after all, no one had a clue what month Jesus was born in, let alone what day of the month that was. I'm pretty certain that they weren't quite sure of the season either), and the day they chose as Christ's birthday was an existing Pagan holy day that involved Trees. [1] Plastic is flammable too!
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Regardless, I think a fuse and ground connection might come in useful.
Grounding, certainly - it will prevent electrocution of people touching the tree in the event that a live wire closes a circuit with the tree. Fuse? Not so much. It can't prevent a fire started by arcing because the arc will jump before the fuse is involved, hence a fuse is not going to help with arcing. It can't prevent a fire from a non-arc short because your house's breaker will trip before the element in question heats up enough to start a fire (breakers typically trip within milliseconds of overcurrent). After all, with almost 100m American households having a flammable[1] tree at christmas, it's still almost unheard of for house-fire statistics to rise in December. In fact, I don't think they ever did! So the dangers are less than one would think (numbers don't lie).
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The question I can't answer is, why? Does it symbolize something? What meaning does it have, and what amount of importance supports that meaning?
Why do modern people do it? Because tradition! Why did the tradition arise? Because, in order to propagate, Christianity leaders chose existing holy days as christian holy days (after all, no one had a clue what month Jesus was born in, let alone what day of the month that was. I'm pretty certain that they weren't quite sure of the season either), and the day they chose as Christ's birthday was an existing Pagan holy day that involved Trees. [1] Plastic is flammable too!
Member 13301679 wrote:
Grounding, certainly - it will prevent electrocution of people touching the tree in the event that a live wire closes a circuit with the tree.
Are you talking about a natural, wooden tree? Wood is quite insulating. Besides, if you have a wooden floor (which is the most common around here), you have no electrical contact with ground. You are like a bird sitting on a power line: There is no reason why the electricity would run through your body. Where should it go from there?
[1] Plastic is flammable too!
Some plastics are. Around here, plastic Christmas trees must be made from inflammable plastics. (The plastics may melt from strong heat, which may be bad enough if you get it on your skin, but being inflammable implies that it won't help flames spread.)
the day they chose as Christ's birthday was an existing Pagan holy day that involved Trees.
The birth date of Jesus was set around 300 CE. The Christmas tree tradition developed in Germany and neighboring countries in the 1500s, and had no effect on what happened 1200 years earlier.
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Tomorrow night I will celebrate Sunturn (aka. winter solstice) with friends, the way we have done the last 15-20 years. This year we have to stay up late: The exact time for lifting our glasses is past midnight, at UTC 3:28 (which is 4:38 local time). Every year we watch the "Rare Exports Inc." movie - if you haven't seen it, try to get an opportunity to. It is great! For Easter, there is less discussion about the right season, although Jews and Christians differ in their ways to calculate it, so the celebrations may be weeks apart. But then: The reasons for celebration is quite different in the two religions, so there is no logical reason why they should be synchronized. But: The great majority of cultures that experience any sort of winter season, has celebrated some sort of "spring feast", that nature and life wakes up again. Here in Norway, Easter never (at least for the last three generations) was considered a great religious feast. Even in my childhood, everybody went to church at Christmas, noone at Easter, except for those who go every Sunday. People go up in the mountains to ski on the last remains of snow. In the south, they take their boat out on the fjord. Ask kids what they think of as "Easter symbols": They will say "Chickens!" Eggs. Marzipan. Branches of sprouting birch and pussy willow - the Norwegian word for catkins is "goslings", known by any four-year-old to be an important element of Easter. While there are still people around here trying to claim Youle as a Christian celebration - they are fewer ever year - I can't remember anyone claiming monopoly on Easter as a religious feast. Even going back to my grandparents and great grandparents, photo albums and that sort of things have no indications of any church activity, but lots about skiing, cottage life, boat trips to the small islands. Another celebration: I spent a year in the USA when 17-18 years old, as was surprised that they celebrated new year as a religious feast. I had never heard of that in Norway, not a word in that direction. So I asked what made it a reason to celebrate, an was met with a strange look: Don't you know? Don't you know that it is Jesus' Circumcision Day? I have to admit: I had never ever heard that mentioned before, and here in Norway, not until this day. It must be said that circumcision was practically unknown in Norway at that time; I knew it as word when I was a boy, but when someone told me, at around 10-12 years, what it really meant, I first refused to believe it, that anyone
I've lived in the USA my whole life and grew up Catholic. I've never heard a religious reason for New Year's Day until you mentioned it just now. On a side note, there is a medically valid reason for waiting the Jewish prescribed number of days for circumcision. It's been a long time, but I think it deals with a perfect balance between immune system development being far enough along and something else.
Bond Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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Do you ever take a step back and think about the idea of a Christmas tree? I know why it all started. That makes sense to me. What I don't understand is why a person would go chop down some perfectly good tree, drag it into their house, stand it upright in a bowl of water, and wrap it with several yards of electrical wire. Why not just drive your car into your house? The electrical plugs are two-pronged and haven't a ground connection. There's no fuse. We need to remember that the tree is standing in a metal bowl of water. You can call me an idiot. People do it all the time. Regardless, I think a fuse and ground connection might come in useful. You're wrapping a flammable plant in electrical wire that's surging with 120 volts of electricity. The whole thing is precariously braced upright by 3 screws anchored to a metal bowl filled with water, and it's inside your house. Christmas trees are dangerous. I'll bet there's an existing term for the phobia of Christmas trees. I haven't a clue as to what the term could be. That's a difficult one. Any ideas? The question I can't answer is, why? Does it symbolize something? What meaning does it have, and what amount of importance supports that meaning? There must be something that compels people to spend time and effort on such a perplexing activity. Is it worth getting electrocuted over? Is it so important that you're willing to let your house burn down? Why kill trees? It doesn't need to be chopped down. Just go outside, find a tree, and decorate it with shiny objects. I don't understand it. :wtf:
Queen Victoria said that was the way to do it. Who are you to say "no"? 'Course, she was using candles not electrical lights... but the principle of dangerous stuff in the house is basically unchanged. I heard a joke this year too - Christmas tree joke - guy said he was calling his tree "Amy Winehouse" cause he knew it was going to die and leave lots of needles laying around.
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I can give you one reason: The smell. Plastic trees are worthless. The "Silver Fir" (edelgran, 'noble fir') that doesn't shed its needles, hence have been very popular the last few years, has virtually no smell, and is worthless. A true "Norway Spruce": When you enter the living room in the morning where the tree has has had all night to spread its subtle perfume all over the room ... Nothing can give me the Christmas feeling like that! You can have similar experiences with juniper branches, or by burning incense, but those are raw and brutal when compared to the rich, sophisticated aroma of a true, Norwegian Spruce, Christmas tree.
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Do you ever take a step back and think about the idea of a Christmas tree? I know why it all started. That makes sense to me. What I don't understand is why a person would go chop down some perfectly good tree, drag it into their house, stand it upright in a bowl of water, and wrap it with several yards of electrical wire. Why not just drive your car into your house? The electrical plugs are two-pronged and haven't a ground connection. There's no fuse. We need to remember that the tree is standing in a metal bowl of water. You can call me an idiot. People do it all the time. Regardless, I think a fuse and ground connection might come in useful. You're wrapping a flammable plant in electrical wire that's surging with 120 volts of electricity. The whole thing is precariously braced upright by 3 screws anchored to a metal bowl filled with water, and it's inside your house. Christmas trees are dangerous. I'll bet there's an existing term for the phobia of Christmas trees. I haven't a clue as to what the term could be. That's a difficult one. Any ideas? The question I can't answer is, why? Does it symbolize something? What meaning does it have, and what amount of importance supports that meaning? There must be something that compels people to spend time and effort on such a perplexing activity. Is it worth getting electrocuted over? Is it so important that you're willing to let your house burn down? Why kill trees? It doesn't need to be chopped down. Just go outside, find a tree, and decorate it with shiny objects. I don't understand it. :wtf:
Killing trees: I used to not feel so good about the use of live trees for this myself. I later realized that these trees are farmed. i.e. they wouldn't exist if there wasn't a market for them, just like heads of lettuce and other vegetables. So, although yes, it's still killing of a perfectly good plant, it's not like Christmas tree purveyors are buying forests up constantly to feed to their customers. Electric lights on trees: There is a small fuse in the plug of all strings of lights (UL listed anyway which is about all you can find I think now-a-days). Also, the wires are really thin so even if you touched two raw wires of it together right from the plug I'm talking, before the string's fuse blew it'd be a pretty small arc. And lastly, since 2017, in the US the national electric code requires the use of an arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) in nearly every home circuit (some exceptions for large appliance circuits). This would exist in the central panel. So, the circuit breaker would detect the arc and trip.
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I can give you one reason: The smell. Plastic trees are worthless. The "Silver Fir" (edelgran, 'noble fir') that doesn't shed its needles, hence have been very popular the last few years, has virtually no smell, and is worthless. A true "Norway Spruce": When you enter the living room in the morning where the tree has has had all night to spread its subtle perfume all over the room ... Nothing can give me the Christmas feeling like that! You can have similar experiences with juniper branches, or by burning incense, but those are raw and brutal when compared to the rich, sophisticated aroma of a true, Norwegian Spruce, Christmas tree.
Christmas trees always gave me asthma attacks when I was a kid. I remembered Christmas as a depressing yellow time because of it. It wasn't long before our family switched to artificial plastic trees used for several seasons each. Now that my family has grown up, I buy an extra small live tree in a bucket and try to plant it in the ground afterwards. The last two died. Anyhow, to avoid the electrical dangers, you could just use wax candles, instead. ;) Regarding the origin and purpose, I think that subject goes beyond what is allowed here but look up Yuletide.
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Do you ever take a step back and think about the idea of a Christmas tree? I know why it all started. That makes sense to me. What I don't understand is why a person would go chop down some perfectly good tree, drag it into their house, stand it upright in a bowl of water, and wrap it with several yards of electrical wire. Why not just drive your car into your house? The electrical plugs are two-pronged and haven't a ground connection. There's no fuse. We need to remember that the tree is standing in a metal bowl of water. You can call me an idiot. People do it all the time. Regardless, I think a fuse and ground connection might come in useful. You're wrapping a flammable plant in electrical wire that's surging with 120 volts of electricity. The whole thing is precariously braced upright by 3 screws anchored to a metal bowl filled with water, and it's inside your house. Christmas trees are dangerous. I'll bet there's an existing term for the phobia of Christmas trees. I haven't a clue as to what the term could be. That's a difficult one. Any ideas? The question I can't answer is, why? Does it symbolize something? What meaning does it have, and what amount of importance supports that meaning? There must be something that compels people to spend time and effort on such a perplexing activity. Is it worth getting electrocuted over? Is it so important that you're willing to let your house burn down? Why kill trees? It doesn't need to be chopped down. Just go outside, find a tree, and decorate it with shiny objects. I don't understand it. :wtf:
There are several reasons for a Christmas tree in the home. Some of those reasons mix together. For me, it is primarily the Christian religion for what a tree means in my faith (a whole other story), combined with family traditions that are pleasant to my memories. When we used live trees, the relationship part of finding and cutting down a tree with a family member is a precious memory. The smell and the shared effort and time together meant something. As for the electrical and fire issues, we took precautions to minimize the probability of an incident to make the outcome more valuable than the risk. Later, we shifted to artificial trees, and like the real trees, enjoyed the time decorating together. Each day we see them, it reminds us of the real reason for Christ in Christmas, and for how much we enjoy this time with family. So, by both having a defined and understood purpose, and mitigating risk to a safe level, we can put up a Christmas tree and not have any worries about it.
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Christmas trees always gave me asthma attacks when I was a kid. I remembered Christmas as a depressing yellow time because of it. It wasn't long before our family switched to artificial plastic trees used for several seasons each. Now that my family has grown up, I buy an extra small live tree in a bucket and try to plant it in the ground afterwards. The last two died. Anyhow, to avoid the electrical dangers, you could just use wax candles, instead. ;) Regarding the origin and purpose, I think that subject goes beyond what is allowed here but look up Yuletide.
Bruce Patin wrote:
I buy an extra small live tree in a bucket and try to plant it in the ground afterwards
I wouldn't expect in the northern hemisphere that planting a tree in January is going to work out well normally. Perhaps buy one in the spring, follow the instructions, then in a couple of years celebrate by throwing a couple of lights around it.
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Christmas trees always gave me asthma attacks when I was a kid. I remembered Christmas as a depressing yellow time because of it. It wasn't long before our family switched to artificial plastic trees used for several seasons each. Now that my family has grown up, I buy an extra small live tree in a bucket and try to plant it in the ground afterwards. The last two died. Anyhow, to avoid the electrical dangers, you could just use wax candles, instead. ;) Regarding the origin and purpose, I think that subject goes beyond what is allowed here but look up Yuletide.
Bruce Patin wrote:
Christmas trees always gave me asthma attacks when I was a kid.
That is one good reason not to bring a real tree into the living room. But, even though some people are allergic to dogs, I think it is OK for non-allergic people to have dogs. So I think non-asthmatic people can continue having Christmas trees - or, that is not a reason for throwing it out. If you really are asthmatic, you probably should avoid a few other things, too. I guess that there are different varieties of asthma, but a fair share of those who are plagued by fir trees are similarly plagued by candles, so you might want to avoid them. And incense - like many families in Norway, we used to burn it around Christmas time, but at least one guest could not come to visit us if we had burnt incense the same day. I've been pondering as a business idea that which you suggest: Christmas trees that are allowed to live on, every year your hedgerow gets a little longer ... You probably would need a very big bucket. Around here we have just been through 3 weeks of night temperatures of -16 to -15 C, day temperatures around -12 C. You have to be very careful when moving an outdoor tree into living room temperatures: Do it in several temperature steps, spread over a couple days. After Christmas is over, do the opposite: Condition it slowly to low temperatures before moving it back into your garden. During Christmas: Use a spray bottle to give the tree higher humidity than is common in a living room in winter; at least around here, it tends to be much to dry for a tree to thrive. Doing this with a juniper is probably a better alternative than a fir - junipers are robust, they can take a beating. I'd probably go for those cultivated, narrow almost like a column, variants; they are suitable for a an semi-open hedgerow. Juniper also has a nice smell, and it won't shred its needles. If you have a small living room, you may like that it occupies far less space than most fir trees (and plastic trees). A well known Norwegian Christmas song goes "Let us dance around the juniper bush". In old days, junipers were used as Christmas trees, but now you rarely see it. Maybe rooted trees could make a comeback for the juniper!