Tannenbaum III

 Here are the final trees from this years unique trees, enjoy! 

The Wild West Cowboy Tree

The 50's Throwback Tree

The Belle of the Ball Tree

The Hung-From-The-Ceiling-With-Care Tree

The Have-Your-Cake and Eat it too Tree

The Naturalist's Tree 

Chilling Collection

 Another Guinness Record holder, this time for snow globes. The German man first claimed the record in 2002 when he had 6,100 of them, now the collection has almost doubled to 11,000. His collection began in 1984 when a friend gave him a snow globe as a gift, friends continued to gift him snow globes until he realized he could also buy his own. So he traveled the world with his wife hunting down unique additions until he has pretty much maxed out their space. His oldest is from 1889 of the Eiffel Tower, his smallest is a pin that can be worn on clothing and the largest is a lamppost that is taller than he is. 

O Tannenbaum II

 For those of you who missed the first installment of these weird and wonderful Christmas trees just go back to the December 15th post if you want to see the previous trees displayed. 

The Southern Charm Tree 

The Prickly Aunt Tree 

The Steampunk's Inventors Tree 

The Funky Grandma Tree

Always Ready to Play Ball Tree

Go Grannies

 This is one of the best ideas to come down the pike in a long time, Grandma Stands. A man in New York City had a grandma in Seattle who like many older folks, had a lot of useful information and advice to share, so he set up a lemonade stand with a laptop and noise cancelling headphones so people could do just that...talk to his grandma. For six years his grandma continued speaking to thousands of complete strangers until she died in 2018 at 102. The man retired the stand until 2024 when he realized the world still needed some good old fashioned wisdom. Since then the project has become nationwide, in NYC there are 15 grandmas staffing rotating pop-ups all over the city. This is really a win-win since people seeking advice have someone to turn to and the folks giving the advice feel like they have a purpose. 

Slop

 Merriam-Webster have chosen their word of the year for 2025, drum roll please...Slop. Seems kind of anticlimactic but their definition of the word explains the choice. "Slop" in 2025 defines all the AI generated digital content dumped on our screens. Another word that stood out in their lookup data was gerrymander which isn't surprising though the story behind the word is amusing. The word comes from Elbridge Gerry who was vice president to James Madison, Gerry was the one who decided that by redrawing districts more members of his party could get elected. His systems resulted in irregular and oddly shaped districts, including Gerry's home district which looked a little like a newt. Upon seeing the map a member of the opposing party drew feet, wings and a head on Gerry's district and said, "That will do for a salamander!" Another member called out "Gerrymander!" and the term stuck. 

O Tannenbaum

 Today's post will have a couple of more parts though there may be some days between the installments. These are examples of Christmas trees from different areas and from the looks of a few maybe different worlds. 

The technicolor manifesto tree 

The midcentury cool tree 

The maximalist bloom tree 

The angular architect's tree 

The Jetsons' holiday tree 

About the Nose

 We all know about Rudolph and how he was bullied by the other reindeer until one foggy Christmas Eve when he became a hero for the same nose that had been a problem until that night. The interesting thing is in the animal kingdom bioluminescence isn't uncommon, okay maybe it's not common for reindeer noses but all it takes to make glowing body parts is a simple chemical reaction. A lot of bioluminescence is on the blue end of the spectrum though many colors can be seen including red which would be the perfect color on a foggy night. Now that we know Rudolph could have had a glowing red nose the only other problem remaining is the flying reindeer thing, that part will take a lot more mental stretching.