For whatever reason, neither my local grocery store nor my local drugstore seems to have candy canes

[conuly]

I had to go into the city to Duane Reade. Got six boxes, put two on the tree, set aside one cane each for the kids. The rest of the canes will go up on Christmas Eve - I know what I'm up against here!

We actually just got the tree yesterday, and I don't even know but for the first time in my life, being near the tree made me itchy and my throat scratchy too. Thankfully that seems to have eased up today. Never had a reaction like that from a Christmas tree. Google suggests that it's probably not an allergy to the tree, but perhaps a sensitivity to mold or to the terpenes that make the tree smell good. Hopefully I'll never have a reaction like that again! I didn't even get to help decorate it, really.

Poll #23098 Christmas Trees

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 91

View Respondents

What's your opinion on decorating?

View Answers

Less is more
30 (33.7%)

More is more
41 (46.1%)

No tree for me!
18 (20.2%)

Monocolor or two-color trees are

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Tasteful
30 (34.1%)

Boring
33 (37.5%)

No opinion, I just like clickies
25 (28.4%)

Tinsel?

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Yes!
17 (19.8%)

No - bad for the environment/pets
42 (48.8%)

No - a real hassle with fake trees
13 (15.1%)

No - because we don't have a tree
14 (16.3%)

Real tree or fake?

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Real
25 (29.4%)

Fake
46 (54.1%)

None
14 (16.5%)

If you don't celebrate Christmas, and you still put up a tree, should you call it a Christmas tree?

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Yes
13 (16.2%)

No, call it something else
5 (6.2%)

No, don't put up a tree at all
4 (5.0%)

Christmas stole that tree anyway
58 (72.5%)

Comments

[dine]

I said no to tinsel, though that's at least partially because modern tinsel just isn't the same as the metal tinsel of my childhood. I'm pretty sure our tinsel was lead based, which was banned in the 70s?

I've not had a tree for the past few years, but they were all real
nowadays I think I'd go for a nice, pre-lighted fake, because of the general hassle of obtaining &disposing of a real tree. I've been craving one and while I didn't get one, I think I'll look for sales after Xmas

[cactuswatcher]

I think the tinsel my parents had was aluminum. It shocks me that they later were making it from lead!

[conuly]

LEAD!?

[kengr]

Yep. We had a box of lead tinsel (likely from the 50s) when I was a kid. We quit using it when we got an artifical tree.

[ioplokon]

yep. I'm pretty sure the tinsel we still have is lead? It's certainly old and I doubt aluminum would last that long. It's like... fine if you don't have pets or children and like, don't eat it? Probably???

[conuly]

Lead is dusty, isn't it? You touch it, you get bits of lead on your fingers, it sheds into the air. Everything you touch gets lead on it, and you breathe it in.

[kengr]

If it's lead it'll be *heavy*. I mean noticeably so. Also it'll "tarnish" to a dull gray.

Aluminum would be rather like thin strips of aluminum foil.

If it's lead, it won't be all that hard to melt it into a solid lump and use it for a weight. :-)

[conuly]

According to this, lead was preferred for tinsel precisely because unlike silver, it doesn't tarnish that fast... and unlike aluminum tinsel, it doesn't burn that easily: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/12/dont-lick-the-tinsel/421506/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinsel

[greghousesgf]

eek! That ranks right up there with putting lit candles on trees (which I've only seen people do in pictures and old movies, NOT real life)