Christmas trees, holiday trees, whatever

When we grew up, we had very little. To this day, I don't know if we were poor or if our parents just hoarded their money (they both feel the same). We never had a "boughten" Christmas tree. Dad would go down to the garden and thin a cedar out of the too-closely planted shelterbelt and bring the prickly, scraggly victim in. We are all familiar with putting the poorest side to the wall, but we had the dilemma of two bad grey sides opposite each other. Our decorations were pretty scanty too, so it probably worked out for the best. When I look at Shephard's opulent tree I am a little envious.

Now my house is so small that I usually just get a tumbleweed, lace white lights through it and decorate it with red balls and red ribbons. I hang it from the ceiling and plug the lights into the ceiling fixture. It actually looks stunning at night because the white lights make it look ethereal.

As for the Christmas tree/holiday tree debate, I think that is just another ploy by the Christian right to keep their members worked up. Who in the hell cares what you call it? O'Reilly and Rush just need topics to divert attention away from public opinion on the war and Bush and keep their listeners worked up to a frenzy. The only thing that would get dittoheads more enraged than destroying Christmas is not letting innocent school children pray to Baby Jesus.