After reading 's post, I realized that I have never been comfortable with the idea of cutting down a tree just to use it as a decoration for a few days or weeks...when my sambandhis came over to India in 2000, I hunted and found a sparse, somewhat sad-looking conifer in a pot and decorated that....I knew they didn't like having an artificial one, and I didn't like a dead one, so that was the way I dealt with it....they were too polite to make the comparisons with the lush tree they would have had at home, and accepted the spirit of my having a Christmas tree and decorations for them.

I still hate the idea of cutting down trees, especially when the tree is supposed to represent life continuing in the winter. And last time I saw all those discarded, dead trees when I returned to St Louis…not many becasue I left by Dec 30 or so…but enough to sadden me…

Whey can’t it become a custom to have live trees in planters, which can be planted later on?

Similarly, I would like to change the custom of blowing out candles on a birthday cake to lighting a lamp somewhere and then just cutting and distributing a cake…I am somehow not comfortable with putting out a light as a mark of celebration. How did this custom come about?