Miscellany: A Christmas Countdown, part 2

If there's one thing my family has always done, it's the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree. In an age where you can buy a realistic-looking fake tree that is not only inexpensive (thanks to cheap overseas labor) but probably better overall for the environment, it might be considered a luxury to go out and select a freshly cut tree to prop up in your house for a month.

I've always felt that there's something undeniably special about a real tree, though. We don't bother with tinsel (hard to clean up) or any food-related decorations (like popcoirn strings or gingerbread cookies), but we do hang ornaments and lights on the tree. For the longest time, we had a gaudily lit star at the top; it had several different colors of lights on it that would blink in succession. Thankfully, we ditched that oldie and went with a proper angel instead.