The WORST thing you ever got in your Trick or Treat Bag

[Andybev01]

Mike, do those puritans on your city council want to ban Christmas trees, too? Because, really, they have pagan origins just as much as the jack-o-lanterns do. It's not like baby Jesus was born in a pine forest.

lol pine forest.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Your're right. Baby Jesus was not born in a pine forrest, and no. Those puritans on the city counsel do not try to get Christmas trees banned, but even if they did, there are only two of them on the counsel, and they are both up for re election a year from November, and it's going to give me great pleasure to vote against them. Heck, I just might even run against one of them if no one else does.

But there's nothing to worry about. There's no way a ban on jack o'lanterns, or Christmas trees will ever happen in my town.

Mike

[DemonSlayerMau]

Well like I said, there's never been an issue with banning Trick or Treating in my town. There has been restrictions of things like selling Eggs, Toilet Paper and Shaving Cream, and any other paraphernalia that the kids might use to desecrate people's homes on Halloween night, to people under the age of 18 during the Month of October. I think it's better they do that than completely ban Trick or Treating.
Most of the time we've used fake trees for Christmas, but I've had a few experiences with real ones. Yeah the pine smell is great, but it's also a great way to kick up the allergies and they make a real mess and a lot of work. At least a pumpkin is small in comparison. Having some kind of a tree, real or fake is upholding the Christmas tradition IMO. It really makes little difference to me. Actually I kind of get sad when I see those trees getting thrown out. We just cut them down for one holiday, and then they're dead. But with pumpkins, well, they don't live near as long as trees anyway. Also, putting the fake tree up is part of our own Christmas Traditions. Getting an age old fake tree out used for years and years can be considered just as warm of a tradition as having a real tree, of course we got a fairly new one a couple years ago, but it's still part of the tradition getting it out of the cellar and putting it up. Although they do make my skin irritable when I carve them. Doesn't stop me from enjoying Halloween though.
But I think I like using the LED lights for my pumpkins, and I'd like to try those colored ones. I don't see it as not observing tradition, so much as modernizing old traditions. I mean, people don't still light their trees with candles after all. Now that would be a fire hazard.
Then again, I do quite enjoy the smell of candles. Perhaps votives inside a pumpkin would work alright if the pumpkins were inside, and not susceptible to kids knocking them over, or strong winds.

[Murfreesboro]

DemonSlayer, my kids are right there with you re the artificial trees. I grew up with real ones and never, ever, wanted to change that. But one year, when we were living out in the Southwest, the town ran out of Christmas trees, and we had to buy a fake one. After that, we would alternate. Finally, when my older boy was 5, he told me that he preferred the fake tree because it made him so sad to throw out the Christmas tree into the gutter. So ever since then, I have felt no regret about using an artificial tree. And you are right that there can be a kind of tradition around the artificial tree, too, which you use for many Christmases.

My mother (born in 1914) actually remembered using real candles on the Christmas tree. She said it was the most magical thing ever, that there was no comparing the experience to the electric lights that came into vogue in later years. But she also said that, with candles, the tree was lit once, and once only.

[Spookymufu]

we get a live tree every year, my wifes family always had a live tree and made a big deal out of going to pick one out and all that. My family always had a fake tree and I remember the feeling I got when I would go to a friends house that had a real tree, there was just something cool and different about having a real tree vs. our families fake tree. So now that I am married we always get a live tree, I like going to pick it out, getting it home and setting it up, the smell of the pine in the house and chasing the cats out of it....ahhhhhhhhh.....thats really about the only thing I like about Christmas, other then that, I could do with out it, if I wasnt married and had kids I wouldnt celebrate it at all.

[Pumpkin_Man]

I can certainly understand why people would prefer a fake tree to a real one. It's actualy more ecconomical then buying a real treee every year, but for me, it's tradition to have a real one. It's just my preference. It's what we did in my house when I was a kid. We did switch over to an artificial tree for a while, when we lived in Arm Pit Illinois, A.K.A. New Lenox, but when I bought my 100 year old house in Dwight, I decided to go back to the old Christmas Traditions of a real tree, a manger scene and caneld light. I don't use candles to light the tree, as that is a fire hazzard. But I do have candles that I light when I say my Christmas prayers, and I'm a stickler for the Advent Wreath at every meal during the advent season, unless I have to work and can't get home on tme for dinner.

As for illumination of a jack o'lantern for Halloween, I do have a LED light that changes color that I use for my outside pumpkin, because if it gets knocked over that could be a fire hazzard, but all my indoor pumpkins are lit with votive candles. I'm just not really big on "modernizing" old traditions, but I am also not too big on having my house burn down. But I will allways use candles for my in door jack o'lanterns at Halloween, and carve real j ack o'lanterns, and I will allways have a real tree at Christmas time, which I will have my grand nieces and nephews help me trim up at my Tree Trimming Party.

Mike

[Andybev01]

chasing the cats out of it....ahhhhhhhhh.....thats really about the only thing I like about Christmas

The true meaning of Christmas, right there.

[Spookymufu]

chasing the cats out of it....ahhhhhhhhh.....thats really about the only thing I like about Christmas

The true meaning of Christmas, right there.

you havent lived until you chase a cat out of the Christmas tree and hear them bounce off of all the limbs on the way down

[Pumpkin_Man]

When I was a kid, we had a cat, and I am not kidding, we named that cat "Termites," because of the damage she did to the basement wood work with her claws when she was a kitten. She was the most loving animal I ever knew, but she loved to play, and she loved male cats, as was evicenced by the 3 litters that she had. Anyway, one year, she had a litter and the kittens were just starting to climb on things just as we put up our Christmas Tree. We had a beautiful Scotch Pine, trimmed with all our old tradktional decorations. No department store Christmas tree looked better. We trimmed it up with garland and tinsel, silver and gold, and it was truely a feast for the eyes. Then little by little, Termite's kittens took a shine to the tree. They climbed, they batted thekr pawa at ornaments, then would play with the tinsel and the garland, and some how they managed to knock most of the neadles off of the tree. By the time Christmas Eve arived, that tree made the one featured in "Charlie Brown" look down right respectable. We have home movies of that tree. No pine neadles, most of the ornaments were gone, and a bunch of kittens perched on the various limbs.

And believe it or not, that was one of the best Christmasses ever.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

Mike, I love that story! I can just picture it!

[Pumpkin_Man]

I'll hve to dig up some of the old slides and super 8 mm movies of those kittens. It was a fun Christmas. There are also pictures of Termites some place in there, too.

Mike

[DemonSlayerMau]

I'd like to see this cat of yours Pumpkin man! I bet her and her kittens were cute.

[Pumpkin_Man]

As soon as I have the time go go through all of my dad's old photographs, perhaps I might scan them in. I know there are a lot of cat lovers on this forum, and Termites was a particulary cute and loving pet. She even loved our dog Sparky. I was totaly devistated when she was hit by a car on 111th street.

Mike

[DemonSlayerMau]

That would be awesome! It's too bad Termites got hit though. She sounded like quite a character. We've lost a couple of our kitties this year and it's been hard. It just isn't the same without them, the cats are part of our family. I mean, we went from five cats to three, and it's really strange having so few cats in the house. When I first moved in with my grandma, we had six.

[Pumpkin_Man]

We've had two cats for the longest time, but once we had 3. We had Termites, Bouncie, who was one of her kittens, and for about a year and a half we had "Little," who ironicly grew into the biggest cat I ever saw, and was often mistaken for a small dog. Little died of a ceberal hamorage shortly before Termites gave birth to another litter. Then Bouncie disappeared completely. We don't know to this day what ever happened to her. I think she was adopted by another family. Charmin was our next cat, ans was another of Termites baby, and for about 2 years, it was Termites and Charmin. Then Termites met with her untimly end, so Charmin was out only cat for about 10 or 12 years. He died shrotly after we moved to Arm Pit New Lenox.

Mike