Why I Won't Be Having a Christmas Tree.

Today, Ray caulked the back windows on my house. I have vinyl siding, plywood, 3/4” foam board, and fiberglass insulation all around this house, but the double-paned windows had never been caulked.

Then we got a little table repainted.  My new-to-me flat monitor arrived, but I can’t use it as they sent the wrong video cord with it.  A 9-pin, where it should be a 15-pin on the monitor end. 
The cats had been playing with some wrapping paper, and so I vacuumed all the little bits up.  But I let them have their fun, first. I was supposed to go to the store, but it was wet, chilly and yucky, so I put that off.
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Why I don't put up a Christmas tree.  I am probably going to alienate a lot of people by saying this, but please bear with me, and understand my reasoning.  This something that many of you have done for years, but never really thought about it, and just done it because others do. It's expected!
I don’t do things just because ‘everyone else does it’, without checking facts first.

If I hadn’t done that, my (then) doctor could have killed me by prescribing a medicine that was not compatible with another that HE had prescribed for me.  I read the standard info that the pharmacy gives you, so I was alerted. Then the pharmacy looked it up on their computer, as I didn’t have one then, and it was so, absolutely must not be taken together.   So read the labels or instructions and be aware.

Here is one reason, though not my main one:

"With Christmas almost upon us (again), I thought I’d take another look at the often environmentally outrageous and wasteful traditional customs [like the cutting down of living trees], associated with a mindless, consumer-driven 'festive season.'

Many a Tradition is Born in Creative Endeavour ... and followed because of a lack of it...

 It was not until the 16th century – with the rise of a wasteful bourgeoisie class of society - who had become rich on the backs of the poor house factories of the industrial revolution - that the 'iconic' fir trees were first dragged indoors at Christmas time and decorated, more a symbol of wealth and social standing than respect to Christ.

The Incredible Facts:
Approximately 30-35 million living Fir trees are cut down in the US (alone) every year. No wonder environmentalists grow more and more concerned at the need to continue possibly outmoded traditions, in the face of annihilation due to the continued decimation of the planet upon, which we breathe and stand.

Whilst it is true there are about 21,000 commericial Christmas Tree growers in the U.S today, to compensate the annual demand, it is also true that it takes as many as 15 years to grow a tree of average retail sale height - approx. two metres (6 - 7 feet) - with the average commercial growing time around seven years.

However, it is also true that a global population of 12 billion is expected by the turn of the 22nd century, far exceeding the earth’s capacity to supply such a demand - for no other use than to die over a period of a week - releasing large amounts of stored CO2 into households throughout the world.

It takes only one (1) acre of growing Christmas trees to produce the daily oxygen needed to sustain 18 people..
It is sensible to expect that growing food may be more essential a market by 2100 than dying Christmas trees.
In a world that is slowly beginning to choke around us, it makes sense to seek out alternatives to cutting down anything that is living and converting CO2 into oxygen."

Please make sure yours gets recycled into a lake as cover for the baby fish, or chipped for mulch.

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But my main reason goes back to reading the labels, again! 
Don't just believe the advertising.
Research something before you do it.
The book of Jeremiah was written six hundred years before Jesus’ birth.

JEREMIAH 10:1-5

“1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:

2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne , because they cannot go . Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil , neither also is it in them to do good.” King James Bible.

Here you can check this in other versions of the Bible:

http://www.biblestudytools.com/kjv/jeremiah/10.html

So that is why I won't be putting up a tree today.