Decorating Your Christmas Tree

As the Christmas holiday season starts to approach, a large number of individuals and families start decorating for Christmas.

While just about anything in the home can be decorated, a large amount of focus is placed on the Christmas tree. Since there is a good chance that you may want to purchase a Christmas tree this year, you may be wondering about your decorating options.

Perhaps, the most common Christmas decoration used on a Christmas tree is lights.

Christmas lights are a small set of lights that tend to be multicolored or white, although different color combinations can be purchased. A large number of Christmas tree owners use Christmas lights to decorate their Christmas trees. What is nice about Christmas lights is that you have options when using them. Depending on the type of Christmas lights you use, if you choose to use them at all, you may be able to set your lights to sing a Christmas tune or flash in a certain pattern.

Aside from Christmas lights, Christmas ornaments are another one of the most commonly used Christmas decorations, for Christmas trees.  Christmas ornaments come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and styles.  On average, most Christmas ornaments are in the shape of a ball.  They are typically colored red, green, silver, or gold; however, many Christmas ball ornaments also come designed with unique messages or Christmas symbols.  Christmas ornaments are most commonly hung from Christmas tree branches using ornament hooks, yarn, or thread.

Christmas tree toppers are another item that can regularly be found on a Christmas tree. While Christmas tree toppers, like all other Christmas decorations, come in a wide variety of different sizes, shapes, and styles, they are most commonly sold as angels. Despite the fact that most Christmas tree toppers are in the form on an angel, other popular toppers include stars, crosses, and Santas.  In addition to coming in different sizes, you will find that many Christmas tree toppers are designed to light up, with Christmas lights, and some may even play a musical Christmas tune.

In addition to Christmas tree toppers, Christmas lights, and Christmas ornaments, garland is also used on many Christmas trees. In fact, it is sometimes rare to find a decorated Christmas tree that does not have garland on it. Garland, when used to decorate a Christmas tree, is often intertwined with Christmas lights.  Christmas garland also comes in a number of different styles.  Popular garland styles include floral garland and beaded garland.  It is also possible to find pre-light garland. Pre-light garland is garland that has Christmas lights attached to it already.  The main purpose of pre-light garland is to reduce the amount of time it takes to decorate a Christmas tree.

If you are interested in decorating your Christmas tree with Christmas lights, Christmas ornaments, Christmas tree toppers, or garland, you may need to purchase these items, unless you are using your decorations from last Christmas.  Since all of the previously mentioned Christmas decorations are widely used on Christmas trees, you should be able to find these items from a large number of retailers, both on and offline.  For affordable Christmas decorations, you are urged to check your local dollar stores, discount stores, or department stores.  For the largest selection of Christmas tree decorations, you are urged to shop online or at a local specialty Christmas shop.

Author: Ute Schaedler, Health, Fitness, Marketing & Publishing. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Read More

• Interesting Facts About Christmas
• Christmas in the United States and Canada
• Christmas Song – Silent Night, Holy Night
• Christmas Song – Jingle Bells
• Santa’s Reindeers

Christmas Song – Silent Night, Holy Night

1. Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child.
Holy Infant, so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

2. Silent night! Holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight!
Glories stream from heaven afar;
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ, the Savior, is born!
Christ, the Savior, is born!

3. Silent night! Holy night!
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from Thy Holy Face.
With the dawn of redeeming grace.
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth!
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth!

4. Silent night, holy night,
Wondrous star, lend thy light
With the angels let us sing
Alleluia to our King
Christ the Savior is here,
Jesus the Savior is here!

Author: Ute Schaedler, Health, Fitness, Marketing & Publishing. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Read More

• Christmas Song – Jingle Bells
• Decorating Your Christmas Tree
• Interesting Facts About Christmas
• Santa’s Reindeers
• Christmas in the United States and Canada

Interesting Facts About Christmas

It is an accepted fact that the Christmas tree tradition is one that was brought to the shores of America by German immigrants who continued a practice that was popular in their former homeland.

Today, a Christmas tree, even a miniature one, is present in just about every home at Christmas. It is therefore interesting to note some little-know facts about the Christmas Tree and other traditions related to Christmas.

The first interesting fact is the source of real Christmas Trees for some Americans.

These can be bought at a Christmas Tree Farm or at many local stores and other places of business in just about every town and city across the country around Christmas time. But according to the National Christmas Tree Association, Americans buy about 330,000 Christmas trees that are real through e-commerce or from a catalogue and have them shipped by mail-order.

The scent of real Christmas trees is the reason they are so popular.

But as they stand silently in their decorative wonder, they also are providing another benefit. The Christmas Tree Association says the amount of oxygen produced on a daily basis by one acre of Christmas tree is enough to provide enough oxygen for 18 people. And during the first week, a Christmas Tree at home will use up to one quart of water each day to help retain its longevity for the many days of Christmas.

Since Christmas celebrations gained popularity in America, the Christmas Tree has always been a big tradition.

During the 1950s however, artificial Christmas trees were not always green. It was very popular during those times to have artificial trees with other colors such as silver, pink and aqua. The appeal in having these colored Christmas trees may have been due to the fact that they looked shiny and bright and appeared like tinsel instead of green foliage.An important ceremony related to the Christmas tree that gains national attention during the Christmas season is the lighting of the National Christmas Tree at the White House. This tradition can be credited to President Calvin Coolidge who lit the first decorated Christmas tree outside at the White House in 1923.

The lighting of the National Christmas Tree has also been used to convey some symbolic meaning not related to Christmas.

It was not lighted until Dec. 22 in 1963 because of a national mourning period of 30 days for the assassination of President Kennedy. And while Teddy Roosevelt was President he gave an order that banned the Christmas tree from the White House, not for the assassination of President McKinley in 1901, which caused him to become president, but for reasons related to the environment.

Also of note is that when the National Christmas Tree was lighted on Dec. 13 in 1984, temperatures were in the 70s during an unusually warm December. Christmas has been celebrated in the United States since the 1600s although it wasn’t always very popular. It took more than two centuries into the mid-late 1860s for Christmas to become a popular holiday season all across America. So maybe the rest of the country owes the holiday of Christmas Day to the state of  Alabama, which in 1836 became the first state to declare Dec. 25 a legal
holiday.

It is interesting to note that on Christmas Day of 1789 Congress was in session. And to show how far ahead of the game Alabama was, it wasn’t until June 26, 1870 that the federal government declared Christmas as a federal holiday. Although Christmas is based on the Christian religion, not all Christian groups celebrate the season. Among the Christian groups who do not celebrate Christmas and related traditions such as sending greeting cards are Jehovah Witnesses. Jehovah Witnesses and other non-participating Christian groups say Christmas isn’t specifically mentioned in the Bible as a time or reason to celebrate and
since they strictly adhere to the word of the Bible, they refuse to celebrate Christmas.

Author: Ute Schaedler, Health, Fitness, Marketing & Publishing. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Read More

• Christmas in the United States and Canada
• Decorating Your Christmas Tree
• Christmas Song – Jingle Bells
• Santa’s Reindeers
• Affiliate Marketing Rules

Christmas Song  – Jingle Bells

Jingle Bells

1. Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O’re the fields we go
Laughing all the way.
Bells on bob-tail ring
Making spirits bright
What joy it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight.

Chorus:
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh, O
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.

2. A day or two ago
I thought I’d take a ride
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side;
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot,
We ran into a drifted bank
And there we got upsot. Chorus

3. A day or two ago
The story I must tell
I went out on the snow
And on my back I fell;
A gent was riding by
In a one-horse open sleigh
He laughed at me as I there sprawling laid
But quickly drove away. Chorus

4. Now the ground is white,
Go it while you’re young,
Take the girls along
And sing this sleighing song.
Just bet a bob-tailed bay,
Two-forty as his speed,
Hitch him to an open sleigh
and crack! You’ll take the lead. Chorus

Author: Ute Schaedler, Health, Fitness, Marketing & Publishing. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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All About Rudolph and Santa’s Other Reindeers

Maybe it’s the undeniable alliterative appeal of Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer that makes him the most known or popular of all Santa’s nine flying reindeers.  It certainly doesn’t seem as easy to come up with a similar catchy description for the others – Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen – as named in the song.

The story of Rudolph whose glowing red nose made him a standout, first appeared in 1939 when Montgomery Ward department stores distributed about 2.4 million booklets with the poem in the form of a story about “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

It was written by Robert L. May, who worked in the store’s advertisement or marketing department, to be used to attract more people into the store. When the booklet was reissued in 1939, sales soared to more than 3.5 million copies. But it wasn’t until a decade later, in 1949, that the story really gained immense popularity when Gene Autry sang a musical version of the fable. As a Christmas song, it is second only in popularity to ‘White Christmas.’

Rudolph, the ninth reindeer whose lighted nose guides Santa’s sleigh through the night, is now known worldwide as the song has been translated into more than 20 different languages and an animated television movie has also been based on the story.

Rudolph and his noticeable nose have also become the subject of jokes and sparked more interest in reindeers which has led to much research into Santa and the flying reindeers who pull his sleigh through the sky.

Along with the catchy rhythm of the lyrics, Rudolph’s story is also appealing because of the moral lessons it contains. As the story goes, Rudolph was ostracized by the other reindeers, which laughed and teased him about his shiny red nose. But on a foggy night, when Santa must have been concerned that he may not be able to deliver his Christmas gifts around the world, Santa spotted him and kindly asked if he would step to the front as the leader to ‘guide my sleigh tonight.’ His shiny red nose would after all be very useful in lighting the way, Santa thought. From then on ‘all of the other reindeers loved him,” and rightly predicted that he ‘would go down in history.’

Among the moral lessons the story can impart is that an attribute that is perceived as negative or as a liability can be used for a positive purpose, or, become an asset. It also makes the point that an individual should not let the negative behavior of others define him or her and limit expectations of what can be achieved. And it also illustrates how quickly opinions and attitudes about a person can change.

The question still lingers however of where Rudolph came from. He is commonly regarded as the son of Donner (or Donder), one of the original eight reindeers. But the Snopes.com site rejects this however, saying that he dwelled in a reindeer village elsewhere and it was there that he was seen by Santa who had already started on his Christmas Eve journey to deliver gifts. And in a more modern evolution of the story according to Wikipedia.com, an animation by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) introduced a son, named Robbie, of Rudolph. That son has now become the tenth reindeer.

It’s also interesting to note that the idea of Santa’s sleigh being pulled by reindeers was originated in the poem, ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas.’ That poem tells the story of St. Nicholas, who is Santa, calling his eight tiny reindeers by their names, as previously mentioned, just before he came down the chimney of a house to start filling the stockings from a sack full of toys he carried on his back.

Author: Ute Schaedler, Health, Fitness, Marketing & Publishing. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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Christmas in the United States and Canada

Many of the celebrations in the United States that are associated  with Christmas were traditions brought by German and English  immigrants.

Along with the well-known and practiced tradition of a  brightly decorated Christmas tree, other traditions brought by these  immigrants include Advent calendars, Christmas greeting cards,  gingerbread houses and gingerbread cookies.

Christmas in the United States today can be seen as focused around family, travel, shopping and decorations.

Family and travel go together during Christmas in the United States because family members often have to travel fairly long distances to be with each other at one location. The growth of cities that have primarily economic activity, suburbs for residences, as well as the fact of different industries being found in certain geographic locations, are among the reasons that family members often live great
distances from each other in separate states.

Christmas and its festivities therefore present a wonderful opportunity for many members of the family to gather in celebration and see each other in an intimate setting. The traveling involved makes the Christmas season a busy time of the year for rail and air travel.

The occasion of seeing many family members at Christmas is also linked to the activity of shopping that is an important feature of Christmas in the United States. The Christmas season officially begins on the Friday after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday and which now ranks second in shopping for a single day to the Saturday before Christmas.

Much of the shopping that is done is to purchase gifts for friends and family. Gifts for family members are usually exchanged after dinner on Christmas day, when everyone gathers in the room with the Christmas tree. Gifts are usually left at the base of the Christmas tree in the weeks leading up to Christmas Day.

Gifts may also exchanged before Christmas at parties held by friends and parties held at workplaces.

Second to gifts, shopping is also done at Christmas for decorations. While the Christmas tree may be the centerpiece of attraction, garlands, wreaths, candles and decorative lighting placed outside on lawns or along rooflines are also used to create a beautiful holiday appearance for homes.

Canadians enjoy Christmas activities that are similar to those celebrated in the United States.

That is so because in the 1700s when some German immigrants in the United States migrated to Canada, they continued to practice many of the activities associated with Christmas. The geographical proximity of the two countries also means they share many things, so similarities in Christmas traditions wouldn’t be an exception.

One thing that accounts for the difference between the two countries however, is the Eskimo population in Canada.

Eskimos in Canada celebrate a festival during winter and have other traditions that are absent from American Christmas celebrations.

A practice also exists in Nova Scotia in which small groups of masked individuals march around about two weeks before Christmas. These masked groups attract attention by creating stir with much bell ringing and engaging in a noisy caper in an aim to get candy, sweets and goodies from onlookers.

This tradition bears some similarity to Jonkonoo celebrations in the neighboring islands of the Caribbean. Those celebrations also involve masked individuals, including some that appear on stilts that make them as tall as trees. The parade of Jonkonoo regale onlookers with various antics and present a minor scare to some children, who are then calmed with candies and other treats.

In Nova Scotia, onlookers can try to calm the noise and rowdiness just a little if they can correctly guess the identity of the masked person. A correct guess puts an end to the noise as the mask is removed, exposing the individual. For their part, maskers also play nice by friendly nudging answers from children about whether they have been naughty or nice and handing out candies and treats accordingly.

Author: Ute Schaedler, Health, Fitness, Marketing & Publishing. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Read More

• Interesting Facts About Christmas
• Decorating Your Christmas Tree
• Christmas Song – Jingle Bells
• Santa’s Reindeers
• Affiliate Marketing Rules