8 SURPRISING THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT CHRISTMAS TREES

By Tree Expert Codey Stout

Christmas trees are a classic feature of the winter holiday season, but how much do you really know about them? If you’re looking for some fun Christmas tree facts, you’ve come to the right place.

Here’s what you can expect to learn by the end of the article:

How the tradition of Christmas trees started
What the Christmas tree symbolizes
How you can grow your Christmas tree
How to make a Christmas Tree last longer

Americans buy between 25 million and 30 million real Christmas trees every year. But did you know that the tradition that led to the popularity of Christmas trees started long before the beginning of Christianity? Also, many people don’t know that in 19th-century America, people cut Christmas trees from nearby wild forests.

What else do many people not know about Christmas trees? We spent some time looking at several interesting facts about Christmas trees that are easy to ignore.

The Idea of Christmas Trees Was Born Before Christmas

Trees that remain green in all seasons have always intrigued people. History.com reports that in the same manner that people today use pine, spruce, and fir trees to decorate their homes during the festive season, people in ancient times believed that having these evergreen trees on their doors and windows helped keep away diseases, evil spirits, witches, and goats.

The Encyclopedia Britannica also acknowledges the idea that the use of evergreens for symbolic and decorative purposes preceded the invention of Christianity. The online encyclopedia reports, “The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews.”

In an article about the history of Christmas trees, the magazine Country Living writes that the Christmas tree tradition as we know it today can be traced to 16th-century Germany.

CountryLiving.com reports that 16th-century Germany was “where Christians began to decorate trees.” Adding, “The tradition of adding candles to the tree branches is most commonly attributed to Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation movement in the 1500s.”

According to History.com, 19th-century Americans viewed the tradition of Christmas trees as an oddity. However, they seem to have warmed up to the idea when the German settlers of Pennsylvania made Christmas trees popular by the beginning of the 20th century.

Christmas Trees Symbolized a Celebration of Returning Strength

As the sun’s power weakened in the northern hemisphere during the winter months, people suffered from illnesses. Ancient traditions attributed the gloom in the winter to the weakening of the Sun God. The only thing that seemed to retain its brightness were the evergreen trees that maintained their color.

As the winter receded and gave way to the summer starting from the winter solstice, the ancient traditions celebrated the Sun God’s returning strength. CountryLiving.com reports that the ancient traditions did this by decorating their homes with trees.

Today, the Christmas tree symbolizes different things for different people. For some, it still symbolizes a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. To many others, it forms part of the festive celebrations in December.

Setting Up a Christmas Tree Is an Art That Requires Planning

Family Decorating Christmas Tree Together Stock Footage Video (100% Royalty-free) 4551548 ...

The European provider of Christmas trees and decorations, FairyTrees.co.uk, puts things into perspective when it says, “Setting up an artificial Christmas tree can be an intricately planned action, a way to spend time with the family, creation of a nice memory, relaxation after a hard day, excitement for the coming holidays, but above all it is fun.”

FairyTrees.co.uk suggests that you may need between 30 and 40 minutes to set up a Christmas tree.

There Are Many Types of Christmas Trees

When we talk about Christmas trees, it’s easy to think that there is just one type of tree called a Christmas tree. However, Christmas trees come in many varieties and sizes. Also, these trees can either be real or artificial.

In an answer to a reader’s question on BobVila.com, Jennifer Noonan writes, “There are so many types of evergreens: firs, pines, spruces, and more.” She adds that the Douglas fir “is a staple in most Christmas tree lots, loved for its full pyramid-like shape and long-lasting needles.”

Noonan identifies other popular types of real Christmas trees:

Balsam fir: Symmetrically shaped and known for its fresh scent and works well if you are not planning to hang heavy ornaments on it.

Fraser fir: Known for its ability to retain its needles for longer as long as it is provided with sufficient water, making it great for indoor use.

Scotch pine: Popular for its scent that invokes the holiday spirit.

Colorado blue spruce: This pyramid-shaped tree’s great smell and icy blue color make it a favorite among Christmas tree enthusiasts.

REAL OR FAKE?

If you are not looking to buy a real Christmas tree, you have various choices among artificial trees. However, many people are stuck with a popular question, should I buy a real or an inorganic, man-made Christmas tree?

If you were hoping for an easy answer to the above question, you are out of luck today. Greenpeace.org says that fake and real trees “both have their drawbacks and their benefits, according to the research that’s been conducted into the environmental impacts of each.”

Greenpeace suggests that the main advantage of real trees is that they remove carbon from the atmosphere. However, these trees will release the carbon they captured back into the atmosphere once they are cut down and begin to degrade. Added to this, many farms growing Christmas trees use pesticides, some that can be environmentally unfriendly.

On the other hand, the main advantage of fake trees is that you can use them for many years. This can help you to save money. Also, there is no need for watering and worrying that the needles will start to fall off when the tree begins to dry.

However, Greenpeace notes that fake trees are made from “polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is one of the naughtiest plastics on the plastics list and pollutes across its entire lifespan, from production to end of life.” Adding, “Trees made from PVC are difficult to recycle and so end up going to landfill where they release more greenhouse gases and pollute ecosystems by leaching dangerous chemicals.”

Christmas Trees Grow Well in Specific Soils

The University of New Hampshire proposes that “The difference between a successful and unsuccessful Christmas tree farm depends on site, soil type, customer preferences, possible sales methods, and accessibility to markets.”

When it comes to soil, the University of New Hampshire says that Christmas trees will thrive in “Sandy, loam soils that are moderately to well-drained.” Adding, “Old pastures and recently abandoned agricultural land are ideal locations for starting a plantation.”

Making Your Christmas Tree Last Longer

The ideal Christmas tree will last for the greater part of the festive season. You can do a few things to make sure that you don’t end up with a dry and brittle tree before Christmas.

GoodHousekeeping.com provides some tips on how you can ensure that your Christmas tree lasts longer, which should be around five weeks:

Choose a healthy tree whose needles are well attached to the tree and do not easily fall off.
Trim the stem when you get home to ensure that it easily absorbs water.
Ensure that the tree always has adequate water.
Keep the tree away from any sources of heat.
To avoid having needles all over the house, don’t wait for the tree to become considerably dry before you take it down.

Growing Your Own Tree

Suppose you are worried about the environmental impact of real trees grown in large farms or the artificial ones manufactured in overseas factories. In that case, you can always grow your own Christmas tree.

The magazine Better Homes & Gardens suggests that if you want to grow your own tree, you will have to buy one early in the season because “That’s when nurseries offer sales to pare down their inventory.”

When growing your own Christmas tree, it’s vital to ensure that the tree is well looked after, whether it’s indoors or outdoors.

A Christmas Tree Can Be a Fire Hazard

To ensure that a fire accident doesn’t spoil the festive spirit, it’s essential to consider safety when setting up your Christmas tree.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) advises that you should be fire smart when dealing with your Christmas tree because a small fire can easily spread from the tree, and it can become uncontrollable within a short period.

According to the NFPA, “Almost one-third of home Christmas tree fires are caused by electrical problems.” The same association says that one in five Christmas tree fires start because the tree was too close to a heat source.

The NFPA provides some tips to ensure that everyone remains safe after you set up your Christmas tree:

Keep the tree at least three feet away from a source of heat like heat vents, fireplaces, or radiators.
Do not put trees in places where they could block an exit.
Use lights listed by a qualified testing laboratory.
Ensure that there are no broken or worn cords and be clear about the number of light strands to connect.
Do not decorate the tree with light candles.
Turn off the Christmas tree lights before going to bed or leaving your home.

Dispose of Your Christmas Tree Responsibly

Eventually, the festive season has to come to an end, and you have to dispose of your Christmas tree. It’s vital to ensure that this is done responsibly.

ApartmentTherapy.com provides some tips on how you can dispose of your Christmas tree responsibly:

Find out if you can take the tree back to a hardware center or retailer where it can be turned into mulch.
Check the rules in your area to see whether the waste removal companies will take the tree.
Upcycle the tree and create a bird feeder or shelter.
Use the tree skeleton to support plants like growing tomatoes.
Chop up the tree and use it for firewood; make sure to use this firewood only outside of your home.

If possible, you can nicely store your Christmas tree in your garage and reuse it the following year.

For tips on tree care or removal check out Tree treage.

Wishing everyone safe and happy holidays!

Fresh Christmas Luxury Wreaths | Fernhill Holly Farms

December 7, 2021

The topic of Climate Change and Britain’s Transition Network Initiative

From PFC member Devon:

“Since the Glasgow Climate Change Conference of late is perceived as non-productive by Climate Change hotheads in Britain, I’ve done a bit of research.

I’m receiving news from British activists who are often also fans of Transition Network, a UK charity formed in 2006, at Totnes, a town in Devon.

This charity is based on the idea that action is needed now, to save the environment. Plus, an attempt to give the common people a chance to improve the environment where they live, with greening and cleaning, presenting workshops, encouraging the formation of local Transition Networks.

The panic and fear, caused by the Climate Change report, published in 2003, has driven many a Britons’ participation to a level of feverish activities, as missionaires of what’s equal to a religious belief, creating a strong consensus reality in towns like Totnes, and Glastonbury.

Both are hippy trippy towns, where many who are lost in the desert of their lives, are drawn to like flies on a corpse in decay. Hippie folks are meeting in their favourite pubs, blowing their minds, and artists find inspiration. Although often nothing comes of it, just like those eternal students, end of the 19th century, and early 20th, never leaving their study, saved from participation in the daily life practice, of work and socializing.

For the present day Climate Change activists, in Totnes, Freedom Alliance campaigners, huge demonstrations were happening, last weekend.

British protesters show banners with “You’re burning our future!”

Many slogans in an accusing tone. Gretha Tunberg is carried on hands in Britain.

In the town where I lived, groups of Climate doom and gloom stood in the central shopping street, every Saturday, in 2019, pushing their fist against passers by, with a leaflet in it

When I was targeted, I shook my head, before the fist touched me. Better not start a discussion. The eyes looking at me, were in shock, terrified, confused. How was it possible that I didn’t welcome this beautiful attempt to inform me?

Two residents had made huge banners, hanging on their frontwall, with the texts “We’re in a climate emergency” and another flag showed one of David Atterbury’s quotes, equally doomy.

I’ve witnessed this eager submission to a consensus reality, in Britain, during my 5 years of travelling.

Visiting Glastonbury and Totnes, also in the many years before, during summer holidays, leading to my choice to find a place to live in the countryside of the South Western part of this island, with it’s great diversity of landscapes. And space! 6 x larger than my country of birth! Hills! Rock and red earth! The granite of Dartmoor, an ancient landscape in Devon.

Compared to the Netherlands, here’s less panic, and preaching of that gospel. Although the school system is following the Climate Change agenda quite strong. Children start crying when a dead butterfly is found, made to believe that it’s their doing.

The use of common sense has flown out of the classroom’s window. Transition Network has its roots and shoots here too. But the control on each other’s lifestyle, the use of materials, and our recycling, is far less stern, without turning our backs to each other. In general.

Britons have a tradition of not saying what they think, in the moment when it counts, so that the turning of backs to each other is exercised much. That level of social environment is ignored often, which is hilarious.

The need to belong to a group of like minded people is strong, not only because the urge to prove that you’re good is strong, causing fakery in attitude, and double standards. It’s intriguing to see how conditions of poverty, many live on the breadline, absence of parental reigns too, and poor education, shape moral sense, if ever there is a trace of it.

When they can make profit off you, it’s all sweetness, and praise. Over the top. As soon as there’s nothing to gain, you’re wiped off their memory stick.

It’s also due to the “tradition”- loving top-down policy in the British government, nurtured by a class system that still rules many British minds, and keeps change in the freezer.

Naturally, the younger generations begin to walk away from this regime. But not the upper class part of this society, privileged by being sent to expensive boarding schools, where freedom of expression is fiercely kept under control, creating a numbness that later in life serves as the absence of empathy. Members of the Tory party are an example of it.

All this is a sketch of Britain’s present society, and what is left of its past as World Empire, which shaped also the motive for Brexit.

With the return of its sovereignty, Britain had a chance to pick up the pieces of that past, some thought. That was a sincere hope, in some.

A perfect example of delusional musings during romantic walks through memory lane, projected onto the 21st century. Drama is the daily vitamin for many on that island. The telly and the tabloids show proof of it.

To all Britons I’ve met, life was much better, once upon a time in the past, before Thatcher’s regime. When I checked my impressions for verification, they were in awe by the accuracy of my perception. Even more so for being a foreigner.

Which has lead to control over the lower classes, whose ancestors served wealthy families during Britain’s years of glory, as a World Empire. Servants lived in damp cellars or attics, strictly seperate from Lordship and Ladyship’s part of the house.

That history has left a slavish attitude in the present population to this day. It’s why they ‘re not allowed to speak their mind in freedom, see?

As a servant, in that Victorian era, where Charles Dickens writes about, one had to obey and submit to the whims and excessive lifestyle of those who became rich in no time, without their morals keeping in step with it. Ahem, let’s return to the topic of Climate Change.

Transition Network doesn’t believe in Agenda 21 and Rosa Koire’s campaign to expose it, with her book “Behind the Green Mask”.

I’ve been in touch with Rob Hopkins, the founder of TTN, who labelled me as a conspiracy theorist, and removed all my posts from the TTN virtual community. His argument was “We don’t allow opinions that contradict what we believe in”

Now, 15 years later, many more of us begin to connect the dots, regarding the machinery of world control, isn’t that true?

Britain IS a proper island, meaning, that the skill of informing oneself is less lively, compared to the continent.

Also, due to the fact that living in a survival mode limits one’s freedom of thoughts and hours of leisure, for pondering and wondering.

These are my observations, grown out of an experience of travelling for 5 years in Britain. Most tumultuous years, as some of you will know.

Thank you for reading my musings, wishing you a safe journey and good health, in the changes that are shaping a victorious end of the trouble we’re in. I’m sure of it.

Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and leader of the 1997 anti-whaling campaign at sea, explains in this interview, how Climate Change is a hoax, an imagery threat to all life, presented by the wealthy Western world. India, China, and Russia aren’t following that Pied Piper’s tune.

https://rumble.com/vpxx0z-rair-exclusive-interview-with-greenpeace-founder-patrick-moore.html
RAIR Exclusive Interview with Greenpeace Founder Patrick Moore

October 28, 2021

Grandfather

Article by our friend Devon:

PFC members, here’s a video with an example of how a farmer lives and works on a Latvian farm. His grandson has made the video and wrote the poem that is present below. The grandfather lives alone on the farm and he says “I don’t need anyone to help me – I have horses”

A poem at the end of this documentary:

Grandfather – WorkLizard

Grandfather. Full Documentary – YouTube

I will not die

I will stay

Between you and the sun

Between the grass in the meadow

Cuddled by the scythe

Between the breathing of the horse

And swallow in the window frame

With prayer and the plough

Tearing through earth

I will plough your heart

Between the wrinkles in the barn’s door

Where the scent of hay flows

I will stay as the last one from you all

I will stay

Between you

And eternity

Poem dedicated to Grandfather. Written by grandson Jacob

21st of Sept, 2019 in Latvia.

July 1, 2021July 1, 2021

Kryon 7/1/2021

Kryon 7/1/2021

As we move towards July with the Planetary New Year on the 26th July and the Lions Gate on the 8th August, the energy continues to rise and intensify.

There is no let up.

We are being asked to vibe as high as we can. As our bodies can sustain. So that we transit the Lions Gate to a much higher level of evolution in the New Earth.

We are in the “territory” of the Royal Lions now. The intense Blue light of Regulus coming into focus. It will be challenging at times. But…make your choice to be in the New Earth.To separate yourself from the drama and chaos of the old as it crumbles away. You are helping to create a New Heaven and a New Earth.

So…hold the energy…face forward into the New Earth timeline…and create your dreams. Live your adventure!

You chose to be here at this time. For this reason. To let your Inner Royal Lion emerge. Powerful and Empowered!

Now is the time!

Note: The video/audio below is not a Kryon channeling but a talk on new health concepts and sustainability and human potential.

https://youtu.be/-xtyOgysbFM

Kryon note found below the above video, kind of feels like Kryon is leaving bread crumbs in these side notes.

The predictions that began the shift in the change you are seeing now, are the ones from the indigenous. The ones who have been here for over ten thousand years. These are the ones who began to figure out what the stars were saying. These were the ones who talked to Gaia. They saw the potential shift over the 500-year periods of time. They kept quiet during the other predictions, but then after the millennium shift, they knew the predictions of their Ancestors were correct. Twelve years ago, when it became obvious that the old energy predictions were not happening, the potentials of the original predictions became apparent.

The tribes of the indigenous that were still left on the planet became aware, and together, they began meeting, and the shift and recalibration became real to them. The indigenous of the Northern hemisphere and Southern hemisphere came together, and they discovered that their predictions were the same. The modern Lakota, Hopi, Navaho, and the Maya began to realize that they were all one, and that the prophesies were the same, from the Ancients of all the tribes.

You’re going to see the beginning of a new unity of Earth. There will be many names given to it – the Journey of the Feathered Serpent; the Awakening of the Puma; the meeting of the Eagle and the Condor. But those many names represent the shift, and are all the same.

– Kryon

March 2, 2021

Nature and Our Planet Talk Series – “Plantation vs Forests” – Nature Restoration Group

The Prepare for Change Nature Restoration Group is inviting you for a monthly class / talk about forestry and nature.

Every first Saturday of the month at 17.30 Paris time (11:30 AM New York Time- EST).

Antoine from le Rêve de Gaia foundation will discuss more thoroughly the topic of his last written article that you can find on the website naturerestoration.info

Saturday 6 March the topic will be
“ Plantation vs Forests”

Request an invitation to the group by sending an Email to Shari at shari@prepareforchange.net with your name, email address, and reason for participation. You will receive an email reply with the zoom link prior to the meeting. Once a member of the group, you will receive weekly notices of the calls and topics of discussion.

About The Prepare for Change Nature Restoration Group:

The mission of our group is to collect, direct, organize and inspire information for the purpose of uniting all planetary consciousness and establishing an energetic balance for the Earth. With this information, we hope to empower the collective to create diverse environmental, spiritual and humanitarian-based initiatives.

Our Focus:

The goal is to bring people together and show the world is full of love, hope and happiness. There is always more than one way to look at anything. We are hoping to open minds to the many ways of viewing and healing yourself and our world.