Nov 21st, 2006
About Christmas Tree | General Informations
Christmas tree
A Christmas tree is one of the most popular traditions in the world associated with the celebration of Christmas. It is normally an evergreenconiferous tree that is brought into a home or used in the open, and is decorated with Christmas lights and colourful ornaments during the days around Christmas.
Traditionally, Christmas trees were not brought in and decorated until Christmas Eve (24 December), and then removed the day after twelfth night (6 January); to have a tree up before or after these dates was even considered bad luck and even a sin. Modern commercialisation of Christmas has however resulted in trees being put up much earlier; in shops often as early as late October. A common tradition in U.S. homes is to put the tree up right after Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November) and to take it down right after the New Year.
However, some households in the U.S. do not put up the tree until the second week of December, and leave it up until the 6th of January (Epiphany). In Germany, Catholics take their Christmas trees down by the 2nd of February. In Australia, the Christmas tree is usually put up on the 1st of December, which occurs about a week before the school summer holidays.
Artificial trees
Artificial trees are sometimes even a necessity in some rented homes (especially apartment flats), due to the potential fire danger from a dried-out real tree, leading to their prohibition by some landlords. They may also be necessary for people who have an allergy to conifers, and are increasingly popular in office settings.
Feather trees
The first artificial trees were tabletop feather trees, made from green-dyed goose feathers wound onto sticks drilled into a larger one, like the branches on a tree. Originating in Germany in the 19th century to prevent further deforestation, these “minimalist” trees show off small ornaments very well. The first feather trees came to the U.S. in 1913, in the Sears, Roebuck and Companycatalog.
Modern trees
The first modern artificial Christmas trees were produced by companies which made brushes. They were made the same way, using animal hair (mainly pig bristles) and later plastic bristles, dyed pine-green colour, inserted between twisted wires that form the branches. The bases of the branches were then twisted together to form a large branch, which was then inserted by the user into a wooden pole (now metal with plastic rings) for a trunk. Each row of branches is a different size, colour coded at the base with paint or stickers for ease of assembly.
The first trees looked like long-needled pine trees, but later trees use flat PVC sheets to make the needles. Many also have very short brown “needles” wound in with the longer green ones, to imitate the branch itself or the bases that each group of pine (but not other conifer) needles grows from. These trees have become a little more realistic every year, with a few deluxe trees containing multiple branch styles. Many trees now come in “slim” versions, to fit in smaller spaces. Most of the better trees have branches hinged to the pole, though the less-expensive ones generally still come separately. The hinged branched trees just need for the branches to be lowered. But they are a little less compact. Better trees also have more branch tips, the number usually listed on the box.
Around 2003, some trees with moulded plastic branches started selling in the U.S. Now there are also upside down christmas trees. These christmas trees are advertised to “Give you more space for presents”.
Outdoor trees
Outdoor branched trees made out of heavy white-enameled steel wires have become more popular on U.S. lawns in the 2000s, along with 1990s spiral ones that hang from a central pole, both styles being lighted with standard miniature lights. These lights are usually white, but often are green, red, red/green, blue/white, blue, or multicoloured, and sometimes with a small controller to fade colours back and forth.
A few hotels and other buildings, both public and private, will string lights up from the roof to the top of a small tower on top of the building, so that at night it appears as a lit Christmas tree, often using green or other coloured lights. Some skyscrapers will tell certain offices to leave their lights on (and others off) at night during December, creating a Christmas tree pattern.
Designer trees
The first trees which were not green were the metallic trees of the 1950s and 1960s. They were aluminium-coated paper, meaning that they also posed a great fire hazard if lights were put directly on them (warnings to this effect are still issued with most christmas tree lights). They were instead lit by a spotlight or floodlight, often with a motorised rotating color wheel in front of it. More recent tinsel trees can be used safely with lights.
Other artificial trees which look nothing like a conifer except for the triangular or conical shape, are also used as tabletop decorations, such as a stack of ornaments.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org
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[…] It’s Christmas time! For a successful fete, you need to open your mind, to relax and be happy! You can also transform your Christmas tree and arrangements in some real peaces of art! This will rejoice your quests. Here come some advices for you to assort a Feng shui style to the Christmas celebration. • Feng Shui philosophy recommends you to use a lot of green. The green of the Christmas tree or plants (Christmas flower, mistletoe) is a relaxing color and it will inspire o peace, calm, pleasant state of mind, incurring all the bad energies produced by the color agglomeration and the warmth. Don’t use too much red to decorate your house for Christmas, because it’s considered the fire power and it’s not good for your estate. • The Christmas angel figurines create a happy story world and inspire good feelings. So use them to decorate your house.• Get together your family members to decorate the Christmas tree, to create a special moment and to entail the good energies of the ritual.• Feng Shui means equilibrium. Therefore don’t you overcrowd the air with too many colors. Put some Christmas carols.• The Christmas table has to be a round one. This suggests equality and intimacy, for the conversation to be opened.• Put some candle on the table. This will increase the energy and the good feelings.Decorate Your Christmas tree in Feng Shui colorsGolden and silvery colors- The presence of the Christmas tree such colored will be a reason for a large and opened mind conversation, because those colors represent money, power and fame.Red is the color of the life. Though the red arrangements inspire love and passion, too much red in your Christmas tree will be tiresome, because Feng Shui culture considers that red is full of energy. We recommend you to avoid this powerful color for a Feng Shui Christmas celebration.Blue is the symbol of the spirit. It means God faith, trust and fidelity. It’s important for the Feng Shui air to add some blue in your Christmas arrangement, because is a soothing and cool color. It’s the metal color. And, for who doesn’t know, the metal is one of the five elements that compose the Feng Shui creation cycle: the water feeds and gives birth to the wood, that starts the fire which produces the ash and the last one goes to earth. From earth here comes the mountain that contains metal to extract and from the mountain the water flows.Feng Fhui art suggests you not to use white as the only color of the Christmas arrangements. It is the color of the purity, naivety and morality, but it’s not recommended. The white Christmas tree produces monotony, so it’s not proper for a festivity. Pink colored Christmas tree represents the pleasure to exist and be surrounded by the people you love. The pink also has curing power.A multicolor Christmas tree is charming and appropriate to the Feng Shui art too, only if there are those colors that complete the Chinese cycle: yellow and red (fire), blue (water), brown and green (wood), golden and silvery (metal). […]
[…] There are many types of Christmas arrangement: Christmas tree, Christmas table arrangement, Christmas coronet for entrance, doors or tables, Christmas candles arrangement, Christmas arch, candle natural holder etc. […]
[…] If you want it on your Christmas table or simply in your house, all you need is some pine branches, cones, rose hips, colored leaves, and nuts. You can purchase one pine branches coronet from a flower shop, as you can make it all by yourself. So fabricate a round stable base from thick wire and sticks, tie the pine branches using thin wires chiefly into then the external ones. Just take care that they have the same dimension for keep the round effect. Here come the cones. They can seam like snow or gold or silver if you chose to dust them here and there with toothpaste or with golden or silver glisten or lake before starting to create the coronet. Now is the moment to color the leaves with paints. Let them all dry for a couple of hours. After drying, wire them through the pine branches. The nuts can be pasted but, for a better stability, use a pin and a thread that you’ll pass through the middle of the nuts and then tie them on the pine branches. Add some rose hips above and finally the colored leaves. If you want to create a coronet for the entrance door, replace the pine branches with offshoots of Ilex Aquifolium that will resist more. That’s all and it is a happy and educational play for your children. So let it in their charge! […]
[…] Christmas Tree growers will donate more than 11,000 Christmas Trees to U.S. troops and their families this holiday season. The Trees for Troops Program, sponsored by the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation, kicked off on Nov. 14, 2006, with the collection of trees in Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Ind. These trees will be shipped overseas to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East and sailors in the 5th fleet in the Gulf. […]
Isla Fisher…
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