I don't remember much hoopla surrounding getting a Christmas tree when I was a kid. My grandmother had a silver aluminum one, complete with the light that had a filter with 4 colors on it that spun around. We kids thought it was very high tech. She also had a fully lit and decorated small fake fir, mounted on a base, with fake gifts around it and she hung it, upside down, from the ceiling of her restaurant, over the piano bar, in the summer and called it Christmas in July. It was a big hit with the customers. The staff all wore Santa hats and my grandmother wore a red sweater with white fur on the cuffs, in July, in Los Angeles. Amazing.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group gives Kossacks a safe place to check in, a daily diary where we can let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, earthquakes, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It also allows us to find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, earthquakes etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a Kosmail and ask to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
We do have a diary schedule. But, when you are ready to write that diary, either post in thread or send FloridaSNMOM a Kosmail with the date. If you need someone to fill in, ditto. FloridaSNMOM is here on and off through the day usually from around 9:30 or 10 am eastern to around 11 pm eastern.
Monday:
BadKitties
Tuesday:
ejoanna
Wednesday:
Caedy
Thursday:
art ah zen
Friday:
FloridaSNMOM
Saturday:
Most Awesome Nana
Sunday:
loggersbrat
We took our daughter to a tree farm from the time she was 5 months old until she was 15 when the tree farm lost its lease.
We would go right after Thanksgiving and choose our tree. She would run in between the trees, which usually were wet and muddy underfoot. She loved to hide in them, and jump out at us. Then we would come back closer to Christmas, give a good looking young man $5 to cut it down and tie it on top of our car, and tote it home. Hot chocolate, ornaments, and arguments over the best way to do it always followed.
After the tree farm lost its lease, we were at the mercy of pre cut tree lots. The good thing about that is you have different trees to choose from, not just the ones that can grow locally. We had some very different types of trees over the next few years, but finally found another somewhat local tree farm and are back to buying in November and cutting in December. We like that much better.
What kind of trees have you had? Do you even have a tree at all? I would miss not having one but every year it gets less important. But I thought that about Thanksgiving and we all agree we missed it even though we were in paradise at the time. You never know.