Some Fun & Interesting Christmas Tree Facts - Did You Know . . .

If you are like me, your Christmas Tree went up after Thanksgiving dinner, so you have been enjoying it for several weeks. My grands once again helped with the decorating - it makes the tree so much more fun and meaningful for me. Today I thought it would be fun to look at some of the fun facts about Christmas trees - share them with the children you love . . .

• In the 17th and 18th centuries, in Germany, people used to hang their Christmas trees from the ceilings in their homes.
• Artificial trees began in Germany during the 19th century from Goose feathers which were dyed green.
• Live Christmas trees can contain around 30,000 insects and bugs. One reason I prefer fake trees!
• The tallest ever Christmas tree to be cut, a Douglas Fir, was measured at a staggering 67.36 metres (221 feet). It was decorated and placed in the Northgate Shopping Centre in Seattle, USA.
• One of the first Christmas tree-decorating ceremonies involved adorning a fir tree with paper flowers, singing and dancing around it, and then—brace yourself—lighting the entire thing on fire. 
• These days, the most popular Christmas trees are Blue spruce, Scotch pine, Douglas fir, Fraser fir, balsam fir, and white pine. However, in the early days before everyone settled on firs and pines, some Europeans used cherry or hawthorn trees as their Christmas greenery, according to Sandborn. The appeal of these trees was in their flowers. If you cut off a branch, brought it inside, and set it in a pot of water, it would flower just in time for Christmas.
• According to the National Christmas Tree Association (NCTA), 25 to 30 million live trees are harvested annually. The total land needed for all those farms comes to 547 square miles—about twice the size of the greater Chicago area. Fortunately, these farms help preserve green space, and they also employ about 100,000 Americans each year. 
• If you've heard the phrase "Australian Christmas tree," you might imagine a fir tree on the beach, or possibly one in the ocean Down Under. However, the plant that Australians call a "Christmas tree" is actually an aggressive, hemiparasitic type of mistletoe. This parasite is believed to be the largest in the world, with its roots stabbing victims up to 360 feet away! It looks nothing like a conifer, but its yellow-orange flowers bloom around the holidays, hence the name.
• Every year West Palm Beach, Florida boasts that it has the world's largest Christmas tree made entirely of sand. Eight hundred tons of the stuff go into making "Sandi," a 35-foot peak strung with lights and topped with a star.

You will find more fun facts at this link and this link.