Dear Santa,

I need a new Christmas tree this year. I gave my old tree to my nephew. I thought he would be happy to have a Christmas tree of his own. It's his first year of living on his own, so far away from his family, attending university. Do you remember that tree, Santa? It was the first Christmas tree I ever bought for myself when I had a place of my own. The store I bought it from doesn't even exist now. I kept the original box, packed the tree up carefully each year. Until the divorce and then I didn't put up a tree for a long time.

But, divorce doesn't last forever and yes, I did buy myself a new Christmas tree, a fancy one! A celebration tree! I picked it out after Christmas so I could get a huge, expensive tree for just $40 on sale. I couldn't take it home on the bus, it was just too bulky and heavy. But, even with the taxi fare I still didn't pay the full amount the tree had been selling for. Practical even as I splurged on that tree. It was tall, lots of branches for all my ornaments. I loved the branches too, much nicer than my old tree (as much as I still liked it too). Still, the old tree did not come pre-lit! What a luxury that was. Just get the right plugs in the right places and there it was... all lit up and even a dimmer switch. What a glorious tree it was. Until the top of the three sections disappeared and I felt too discouraged to put it up that way.

This year, already November, Santa Claus, I gave away my old tree out of love and I can't put up the broken tree because it hurts my heart. Have you got a new Christmas tree in your Santa sack for me? Could you send it early, pretty soon in fact? I've got all the decorations out from the garage and they look forlorn sitting out without a tree to decorate.

It must be an artificial tree. I can't even remember ever having anything else since I was a kid and my brother was allergic to real trees. I'd like a tree that will be a little easier to store away, probably about 4 feet tall so I can get it inside a storage tote to keep the dust and mice away from it while it's in the rafters of the garage most of the year. I'd like something pretty. A pre-lit tree again for sure. I found the loveliest tree online (so far) but it's too far out of my budget to consider.

I know you must be crazy busy as December gets closer, but if you can, help me find that perfect little tree so I can put one up again this year. I need my Christmas spirit as much as everyone else.

Take care of yourself,

Me.

Note: This is not written to request anyone send me a tree. I've narrowed it down to a couple from stores in the area. I will have the tree ready to set up by the middle of this week. Thank you to anyone who would consider being charitable, but I'm just fine and I like being independent.

Should you get a Real Tree or a Fake Tree?

You may not have asthma and/ or allergies in your family, this is the most practical reason for having an artificial Christmas tree, to me. You may have animals in your home and want to keep them from treating a real tree like a.... real tree. Or, you may just not like throwing away a real tree after Christmas. If you have enough garden or yard space you can compost the tree but it's not going to compost quickly and it will change the garden soil condition - good for some plants and not so good for others.

In the end, consider a fake tree because they don't shed needles, don't need to be replaced each year and you leave the real trees out there to keep on growing and producing oxygen.

• Flickr: Christmas Tree Carcasses
• Flickr: Christmas Trees Discarded

Modern Artificial Trees are Beautiful Too

There are so many options for the modern artificial Christmas tree, I wonder why people keep cutting down real trees. It is especially sad to see all those real trees thrown out in the trash such a short time later.

Poinsettias are not Poisonous

Did you suddenly feel the need to gnaw on a poinsettia? Unusual but the odd pet or child will give the poinsettia plant a nibble. Luckily, the urban legend is untrue. Poinsettias are not a poisonous plant.

Spurges, the plant family poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) belong to, do contain some highly toxic plants. The poinsettia itself is not toxic. There were cases where poinsettias were thought to have poisoned children but it was later proved to be something else over looked at the time.

The POISINDEX says a 50 pound child would have to eat over 500 poinsettia leaves to be in any danger of being poisoned by enough toxins in the poinsettia plant. Only a garden centre might have that may poinsettias in one room at one time. But I'm pretty sure eating the first few poinsettia leaves would be enough to make anyone re-think the plan of eating more.

The poinsettia does not taste nice (very unpleasant from opinions I have read) and eating the leaves can bring on nausea and vomiting. Most children, animals and people in general will not continue eating the poinsettia plant after the first taste of it.

There are no documented cases of death from poinsettia ingestion.

However, the sap from the poinsettia can cause skin irritation (just as it irritates the gastrointestinal tract when eaten). Use soap and water to wash the skin. Avoid rubbing or touching your eyes if you have gotten the poinsettia sap on your hands.

Where did the Urban Legend Start?

In 1919, the two year old daughter of a US Army officer died. People attributed the death to the little girl having eating poinsettia leaves. No real proof was found when this was investigated later.

There was never any real proof that the girl had died as a result of the poinsettia leaves. Likely she had eaten them at some point, become sick and then died hours later from some other cause. Death by poinsettia was ruled out through research into poinsettias years afterwards.

Poinsettia History

Poinsettias are native to Central America and Mexico.

The plant was named after an American ambassador to Mexico, Joel Robert Poinsett. In 1829 he sent some poinsettias home to his greenhouses in South Carolina. They grew very well there and became popular.

Paul Ecke created the grafting technique which made it easier to grow and market poinsettias. His son, Paul Ecke Jr., heavily promoted the poinsettia as the Christmas flower. Paul Jr. shipped poinsettias to TV and movie stars and appeared on TV himself, promoting the poinsettia, grown by his family.

In the 1990's a university researcher discovered the same grafting technique used by the Ecke family and ended their monopoly, bringing in competition from nurseries all over the US. The Ecke family still deal in plants but they no longer produce poinsettia plants in the US. But, no fear, there are endless other places which do and it is not likely you will ever be unable to find a poinsettia in a shopping mall, grocery store, garden centre or even the odd dollar store, near you.

Why the Poinsettias are a Christmas Flower

According to Mexican legend (starting sometime in the 16th century), the poinsettia was a Christmas miracle.

Mexico had their own Little Drummer Boy who had nothing to offer the new baby Jesus at his birthday. The poor child gathered weeds and created a boquet with them. Some say his sadness caused poinsettias to bloom at his feet and that was the bouquet he gathered. Either way, when he visited the altar for the baby Jesus, the weeds transformed into (or were already) beautiful red blooming poinsettias.

Mexicans also know the poinsettia as Flores de Noche Buena (Flowers of the Holy Night).

Thus, poinsettias are the Christmas flower.

Poisonous Poinsettias are an Urban Legend

• Myth Busted: Poinsettias Are Poisonous - Urban Legends

• Poinsettia plants are poison to children and pets - Fiction!

• Snopes.com: Poisonous Poinsettias

• Poinsettia - Wikipedia

Pink is in for Christmas the past couple of years. Did you know pink for Christmas isn't a new idea? The first aluminum tree came out in 1958. Since then metallic trees had their time of being popular. I remember seeing them in shiny green, red, silver, white, blue and pink.

I think the new trend to have pink trees comes in part from the warmer weather we have been having at Christmas, also all the people who travel to warmer destinations over the winter, including the Canadian Snowbirds in Florida. They bring the ideas of summer into the Christmas season.

I've seen pink flamingos, orange and pink poinsettias and shiny neon pink snowflakes decorating the Christmas trees in stores here. They are very pretty, romantic looking, a change from the traditional red and green.

There are a few places selling the vintage aluminum trees:

Aluminum Christmas Trees

Retro Holiday

Traditions Year Round Holiday Store

Yuletide Expressions (New trees like the vintage silver trees).

Other Resources:

Flickr: Aluminum Christmas Trees

Suite101: Collectible Vintage Aluminum Christmas Trees

ATOM -- Aluminum Tree and Ornament Museum

Wikipedia: Aluminum Christmas Tree

CBC Digital Archives: Aluminum Christmas Trees come to Canada (1960)

Christmas is on my mind today. I'm watching romantic holiday movies. Right now The Lake House with Keanu Reeves. I admit I have a thing for Keanu. How could any Canadian woman not have a soft spot for a hockey player who can dance? It's just finishing up, the final scene, the last great kiss. Funny that he looks older in this movie and yet there is still just something about him... Well, you don't really want to read my mind babbling on about Keanu Reeves.

Will you be blogging for Christmas? Do you keep blogging during the holidays or do you put your blog into suspended animation?

I will be here. For me I like having some alone time during the holidays. This year it is mucked up cause my sister is having a baby and I am the prime babysitter for her other children, those who have left the womb. I will be glad when the babysitting time is done. I am loving having the house to myself for this bit of time. I can cook things the way I like them, or not bother with cooking or eating at all. I did make the Christmas cookies. So I'm not being wicked and lazy and forgetting about the holiday thing. Later, I will haul the Christmas tree and the box of decorations out of the garage. Not looking forward to finding out if mice got in there or not. I'm hoping for at least not too much.

How is your holiday spirit hanging on? Blog about it! :)

Today for Thursday Thirteen... Why I still don't have my Christmas tree or any decorations up...

1. I feel like road kill after having failed the road test, my (well meaning and caring but overly loud) brother and my birthday all in one day yesterday.

2. I don't have the energy, no I don't have the ambition, to find everything.

3. Sometimes it is too much like going through the dead and wishfully buried to look at all that old stuff when looking back seems better than the here and now.

4. Maybe I'm just getting too old for Christmas.

5. Maybe I can just admire other decorations and trees from afar and leave all mine in mothballs.

6. Maybe my Christmas tradition is to buy a new tree ornament and keep everything wrapped up and packed away, in some box or other.

7. It seems too much like the never ending ordeal of moving to have to find all those boxes and unpack them.

8. Maybe I can just procrastinate one more day...

9. I have to get ready to go to work in a couple of hours.

10. At this rate Christmas will be over soon anyway.

11. No one but me will be here to see the tree and decorations, I could just lie and say I had them all up and then took them all down right after the 25th. Let them deal with that.

12. I know I will never find that one angel my Mom bought me for my tree and I just don't want to finally look through the last box and have to admit she (the ornament) is gone forever.

13. My Dad was an electrical engineer, all those little lights and plugs really do give me the creeps, once mildly electrocuted, twice... umm..... severely phobic.