Bah Humbug - It's December again! 23 days to go!

Stupid robotic lights

The tree was delivered in a thunderstorm. I wonder if that has some ominous Odin-like portent?

Ah, well, if it does, then we'll either get hammered this Christmas, or it will be a Loki affair - (oh my goodness, what puns and for this time of the morning!).

Instead of filling the house with the arresting aroma (not the alliteration there - just for my students), a dank rankness of rotting wood (oh such onomatopoeia and I can still feel the dampness in my nostrils), wafted through the house. 

"What's that dead wood smell, Mum?"

Sigh, this was not what I was hoping for. I wanted to conjure up a scent from my childhood, and not one that was normally found in an overfilled nappy.

I couldn't put on the aircon to dry out the room, as the drainage pipe, embedded in a concrete wall had decided to leak last Friday.  I shall be buying the aircon a new drainage pipe for Christmas. I've never bought an object a Christmas present, but I suppose the world is becoming a funny place, and very soon, we'll be buying our own personalised robots gifts to keep them happy.

So, does that mean that there will be a robot Santa Claus? And do dead robots go to Calculator Heaven? Too much Red Dwarf.

What has all this got to do with lights?

My perennial hate, fairy lights - why on earth are they called fairy lights? There are no fairies in sight - unless you count the froufrou fairy who only wore feathers, and sat on top of the small fake tree my mother used as a hall table tree when I was growing up. No one liked her; she was just too froufrou.

The lights, well the icicle lights have let me down, as I mentioned.

The two reindeer are so disgusted, that whichever way you look at them, they are showing you their butts!

Back to the lights and the apparently tenuous robotic link, which in fact, is not that tenuous. Chasing Christmas lights, are programmed, controlled with a little box. Rather like a robot. 

Robotic lights on the Christmas tree, so it won't be long before we have talking decorations.

In true Christmas tree light fashion, and as a reminder that even robots will have to retire to calculator heaven one day, I cannot control the lights. There are eight options, none of which work, apart from one, mega flashy freaky light mode. That is on one set. 

The second set twinkles. OK, I can just about handle twinkling. 

The third set, yes a third set - it is a large (well relatively) tree - fades in and out. Gosh, that one is almost as mind-jarring as the first.

And then, there is the final set. The set I recently purchased from Ikea. Stupid time to shop in Ikea, Sunday afternoon. That is when half of Singapore goes to window shop as there is nothing better to do. Exit a grumpy ang moh lady from Ikea over an hour later. The final set doesn't do anything. It just doesn't match.

And, as if to make matters worse, I need to remember to turn all the lights off when I go out (they are on a timer), just in case they short and set fire to the tree.

I now have nightmares of Victorian Christmas trees, adorned with candles suddenly bursting into flames.

Maybe my son was had a point when he asked for no Christmas tree this year ...

Bah Humbug. It's December again - 14 days until Christmas

Bah Humbug, it's 11th December. It's Thursday and now I am half way through another week and only 14 days to go.

I've just realised that I brought a box of Christmas decorations up from the basement and left them sitting behind the piano. Now that is clever, or rather absent minded of me. 

I now have the conundrum of whether to unpack them and decorate the tree, which after all will only be decorated for another couple of weeks, or just put them away. I don't even remember what is in that box, other than little glass trinkets. Little glass trinkets that the cat will probably play with. Maybe I'll just put the box away.

Which raises the question of why on earth do we cut down evergreen fir trees, and of a particular type, we tend to get Noble Firs here in Singapore while in the US they like the Scots Pine, which always makes me think of men in kilts moaning that they've been forgotten at Christmas.

I digress.

If you are not in to chopping down forests, even if they are grown for chopping down, then you will have invested in a recyclable Christmas tree - in other words, a fake one. One that you take down each year, tape up with tie-wraps and stick in a cupboard to gather dust for the next 11 months of the year. But it does save money and trees and necessitates a certain amount of exercise and exertion to put it together and stand it up. Mine weighs a ton.

I digressed again from the point, why do we decorate fir/pine trees at Christmas?

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The ritual, for that is really what it is, of decorating the Christmas tree, is a family occasion, when everyone helps and gets into the Christmas spirit. Well that is how it used to be; now it is just me, as my boys feel too grown up for this.

I decided to look into this, and here is my potted - like the tree - summary of where it all came from. I've included some links at the end for anyone who really is interested ;)

Legend has it that St Boniface travelled from Devon in 7^th Century to the area of what is now Northern Germany to convert the pagan tribes to Christianity. He is said to have used the triangular shape of the fir tree to explain the Holy Trinity.

Whether that is true or not, many northern Europeans would hang pine trees upside down in and around their homes – (they do make things smell nice when it is stuffy at Christmas). Romans used to decorate their doors with wreaths and arrangements made from greenery to signify a celebration. It was also believed that they kept out evil spirits and witches.

Trees began to be decorated at Christmas fairs held in sixteenth century, to attract people to merchant’s stalls. The merchants hung gifts and food and all sorts on their trees. Rather like the shop windows of today and the scenes outside the shopping malls in Singapore, the trees became more and more elaborate as merchants became more competitive.

It was Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer who first decorated trees with candles to capture the scene of the stars in the sky at Christmas.

The Christmas tree eventually became popular in Great Britain during the reign of Queen Victoria. She used to have one in her room as a child each Christmas. She decorated her tree with candles and was sketched along side it with Prince Albert and their children.

The one downside with putting candles on trees is that you are mixing wood and flames, which equal fire. 

Some insurance companies in the US wanted the government to pass a law banning candles on trees. A prime example of Bah Humbug! In 1895 and American Ralph Morris invented the electric Christmas lights. Which sort of put stop to the insurance companies spoiling Christmas!

That covers the lights, but what about the other decorations and trinkets we put on the tree?

Many years ago, people believed that when a tree lost its leaves outside that their spirits would leave them and then the leaves would never grow again. So, people dressed up the trees in brightly coloured strips of cloth to make sure that the spirits stayed with the trees.

When people began to bring trees inside at Christmas, they started decorating them with sweets and fruit and toys and beads and even tinsel. And the rest is history.

Which shows that traditions come from somewhere, often intriguing and varied and that we should always try to capture the original essence of why we celebrate certain festivals.

That reminds me, I still never got down to the bottom of why we give gifts at Christmas.

That will have to be for another day.

BAH HUMBUG.

The History of Christmas Trees

Why do we decorate a Christmas Tree?

Chronological History of the Christmas Tree

History of Christmas Trees