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Show Thoughts From The Garden . . . by Tonya Lemone Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christinas Christmas wasn't always celebrated the way it is today, with decorations and lights in every store window starting in October. There was a time in our history when . the celebration of Christmas was banned and anyone Caught observing this holiday was given a hefty fine. An integral part of almost every Christmas celebrated is the Christmas tree. Ancient Romans decorated trees with small pieces of metal to honor the God of Agriculture. During the middle ages, an evergreen was decorated with apples and called the paradise tree as a symbol of the feast of Adam and Eve! But to any child, a Christmas tree has a certain amount of magic that causes wonderment and joy in their eyes. The first Christmas tree I remember was an aluminum tree with a wheel of different colors underneath it to constantly change the colors of the tree as the wheel revolved. We were never allowed to help decorate that tree. It was only to look at. When it was just my father and I, we had a real tree and hung ornaments from the local Woolworths store. It was a small tree but it did seem 30 feet tall to me because I not only helped pick out the tree but helped decorate it as well. Surprising to me, the first record of Christmas trees in America was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1747. An actual tree was not decorated, but wooden pyramids covered with evergreen branches were decorated with candles. The custom of the Christmas tree was introduced in the US among the German settlers in Pennsylvania and decorated with homemade ornaments. Women would spend hours quilling snowflakes and stars and sewing pouches containing secret little gifts. Until the 1800's the Christmas tree was considered only a quaint foreign custom found in the little pockets of immigrant settlements. It wasn't until 1850 that the Christmas tree had become fashionable in the eastern ' states. And, the first Christmas tree lot was opened to "the streets of New York City by Mark Carr ,who brought the trees from the Catskills. The first US President to introduce the Christmas tree to the White House was Franklin Pierce in 1876, who wanted to celebrate with a group of Washington Sunday School children. From that point on, commercialization and marketing took over the exposure of the Christmas tree and its ornaments. Germany was the first country to export their glass ornament to England, and to the United States, Today we value those priceless glass ornaments. Even though Christmas is celebrated a little differently now than when the United States was first settled, I still stand in wonderment, and get a little lump in my throat and a tear in my eye when I attend the annual tree lighting in Lindon City, I feel like I have been transformed to "Hadleyville" and the clock has stopped for a brief moment. Everything seems to move in slow motion as that "30 foot" tree becomes magical and I see it as seen through the eyes of the child 1 once was. Look upon your Christmas tree this year and reflect back to the first immigrant settlers and their humble Christmas trees and to your own childhood. Your Christmas tree may not look perfect and may be too big, too small or too thin and it certainly isn't any where near 30 feet tall to you, but in the eyes of a child somewhere it certainly is 30 feet tall. See you in the Garden |