Sunday, December 18, 2011

Four Christmas Trees!!

Christmas Day is one week away!  But Christmas celebrations have started early and go on as long as possible in our house!! 

We finally put up and decorated our tree today.  We had carols playing and a crackling fire in the fireplace, on our TV screen courtesy of our satelite provider LOL!  Our collection of Santas, snowmen and angels will get displayed tomorrow.  We think this is our seventh Christmas here in Florida and we have amassed quite a few decorations.  I miss some of the special ones we have left at home in Nova Scotia along with our family and friends.



My second tree is just above this post - I found a countdown clock to add to my blog!! I read a blog lately where someone was trying to do just this. If you want to know how to do this, email me or leave a note (with your email) and I will tell you how.

Every year, no matter where I am, as we decorate our Christmas tree I think of Boston.  Nova Scotia, my home province in Canada, and Massachusetts have a very special history which dates back to Dec 6, 1917.  Early that morning, just after the school day had started,  in the crowded wartime harbor, a French cargo ship loaded with TNT and other munitions collided with a Belgian relief ship, causing a fire, explosion, and tsunami that leveled over 2 acres of the port and killed 2000 people.  This was the greatest man-made explosion prior to the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Also, that night while thousands had to sleep in the open, a blizzard hit and caused many more deaths.   In the ensuing rescue effort, a well-supplied Massachusetts delegation was among the first to arrive in Halifax and the last to leave. The next year, the still-struggling city of Halifax thanked the people of Boston by sending them a 46 foot fir Christmas tree, a tradition that was revived in the 1970s and continues today.  This is the fortieth year of this unique partnership.

Here is the 2011 tree being loaded  for Boston, on Nov 15th.  The tree is always donated and the tree grower is proud to be a part of this special friendship.


And here it is after the lighting on Dec 1st.



This 45-foot Nova Scotia Christmas tree is adorned with 52,000 LED lights.

Tree number four is our new outside Christmas tree.  My partner came in from her walk tonight carrying a rather large cardboard box, proclaiming that the garbage-picker was home!  Someone had thrown out a tree that appeared to be in good shape.  When we put it together and tried it we found that one section of lights would not work because a few lights were broken.  We replaced them (the spare lights were also in the box) and here it is:



Gotta love Christmas trees - especially the free ones!!

2 comments:

The Sunflower Patch said...

The more the merrier ;) Thanks for sharing a bit of history too!

Bina Simon said...

You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be really something which I think I would never understand. It seems too complicated and extremely broad for me. I’m looking forward to your next post, I will try to get the hang of it!
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