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| Sunday, 22 December 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Christmas trees : 'growing' trends by Jayanthi Liyanage Two years ago, Warren Caragata of Indonesia enthusiastically described of preparing for his second Jakarta Christmas.
Warren's Christmas spirit of localising and innovative thinking has not gone lacking in our own small Island. "I remember using a young coconut palm as a Christmas tree," says Rev. Fr. Ernest Poruthota, Parish Priest, St. Mary's Church, Dehiwela. "The idea of a Christmas tree is to depict flowers, fruits and joy and a local tree can easily fit into the concept." It certainly is an idea. If your improvising accelerando gets a free hand, you can even visualise talipot palms, banana trees and the lean, generously-boughed dendro shoots taking centre-stage as Christmas trees. But the idea of straying from the usual cypress tree has been one which many industrious tree-makers have marvellously flown away with, to the synthetic. As seen by the chillied, garlic-ed, clothed, papered, twigged, wired and ballooned Christmas tree variants springing up like mushrooms in seasonally-decked hotel lounges and shopping arcades. And almost every round-about in seasonal Colombo has a cluster of never-before-seen kind of Christmas trees, made up of anything but a trunk and leaves. "Christmas trees are for homely joy," ventures Rev. Fr. Poruthota. "For us, the Christmas week begins with a tree which has tags in place of leaves. Each tag has the name and the age of a child." Good Samaritans coming to pray pick up tags and fill the bare branches with gifts for the children.
"For the last ten years, re-usable plastic trees have been popular in Colombo," reveals a Christmas-tree seller in Pettah. "They are two of a kind - the rich and shiny 'plastic' and the dull 'pvc'." Or else, pick a fibre-optic "Glow tree" or download from the Web an animated tree, strapped with twinkles, lights, music and flashing text. "Still the people's larger choice is the natural Christmas tree," asserts S.A.G. Wijegoonetilake, Asst. General Manager, State Timber Corporation which, transports more than a 1,000 cypress trees to Colombo from Department of Forestry cultivations in Nuwara Eliya, each Christmas. The trend has been a long-standing tradition in America where 30 million American families celebrate Christmas each year with a fresh, farm-grown Christmas tree. Christmas tree enthusiasts believe that the aroma of a real Christmas tree is a strong reminder and symbol of life, family traditions and the innocence of childhood itself. As other crops provide food for the body, the aroma of a farm-grown Christmas tree provides food for the soul. "The ideal size is 4-6 ft which is mainly bought by homes," explains Wijegoonetilake, adding that hotels prefer the gangling 10-12 footers. This year, as you celebrate Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward Men and Women, say a prayer to the Earth too and rejoice in Goodwill to the tree which brings in that very special meaning of Family Christmas to the enclaves of your cosy home. The legend of the Christmas Tree The ancient trail of the Christmas tree has long, long faded from the human eye into the vanishing mists of the past.
The first Christmas Tree came from the snow-laden ridges of Riga, Latvia. In 1510, Rigans are believed to have decorated the world's first chronicled Christmas Tree with fruits, cookies and candy and made merry, gifting the delicacies to family members. By 1700s, the tree tradition was all over Europe, led by Germans who made it a regular Christmas protocol. Hessian soldiers of fortune, fighting for Britain, shipped the custom to the United States in the Revolutionary War and the new American settlers went one better with wild trees cut from the surrounding forests. And Christmas meant cheery, day-long family excursions to the woods to bring home the Christmas fir, spruce or cedar. A charming little tale relates how out of the many trees offering protection to the Holy Family fleeing King Herod's soldiers, the pine tree hid them safe. The Christ Child blessed the tree, and today, if you cut a pine cone lengthwise, you can still see the imprint of a little hand. The next two centuries has seen the Christmas Tree evolving from being a personally singled-out nature's embellishment into the commercial production and distribution of the human-made grandeur we are familiar with today. |
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| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
"We bought a bougainvillaea with red flowers as the evergreens
that pass for Christmas trees here are nothing like the bushy pines and
fragrant firs that I associate with Yuletide. So we had to make do with
the bougainvillaea."
Come Christmas day and the splendrous tree is laden with "leaves
of generosity" and each "leaf" goes to gladden the heart of
a tiny one.
Its moment of birth would have taken place when the old world pagan
spring revelries of breaking into song and dance with evergreen boughs, in
a spontaneous celebration of life and nature's rebirth, crept into the
joyful ceremonies of the coming of the Christ Child.
