How To Become Insane

Modern day Christmas trees originated in the 19th century
Britain by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. During the
Victorian era trees were the focus of celebration and were
decorated with toys, cakes, bonbons and other sweet treats.

Young women in the households made decorations from paper,
silk, feathers, and lace to hold the treats.

After 1865 glass trinkets, wire ornaments were began in
Germany.

By the 1880’s Woolworth’s sold commercially produced Xmas
tree ornaments.

In the early years real silver tinsel was used for Christmas
decorating and the modern version was began in the 1950’s.
Spiders are sometime given credit for building webs in trees
which sparkled in the morning dew and sunlight which
inspired the invention of tinsel.

In America fake trees gained popularity early in the
twentieth century but not in Britain until the 1950’s. While
plastic and aluminum were the trees of choice in America,
the UK had a penchant for feather trees in the 1920’s which
quickly disappeared by the 1930’s.

Originally in Victorian times candles were used for lights
on trees. The invention of electricity brought fairy lights
to America in the mid 1880’s. By the 1920’s candles were
rarely used.

President Franklin Pierce brought the first Christmas tree
in the White House during the mid-1850’s. President Calvin
Coolidge started the National Christmas Tree Lighting
Ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923.

The fairy at the top of the Christmas tree was originally a
little figure of the baby Jesus.

Christmas tree farms originated during the depression.
Nurserymen found that they could make a profit by cutting
evergreens for Christmas trees when they couldn’t sell them
for landscaping.

But all Christmas trees were not started as a symbol of
Christianity.

The Egyptians, Romans, Druids, and other cultures regarded
the tree as a symbol of life. They brought green branches
into their homes on the Winter Solstice as a symbol of
life’s triumph over death.

Druid priests decorated oak trees with golden apples for
their winter solstice agricultural festivities.

In the middle ages, evergreen trees were decorated with red
apples on December 24 as the symbol of the Feast of Adam and
Eve.

Even today, Christmas trees are unique to individual
countries.

In Brazil where Christmas occurs during the summer, pine
trees are decorated with little pieces of cotton to
represent falling snow.

In Greenland Christmas trees have to be imported because no
trees live this far north.

In South Africa, Christmas is a summer holiday. Instead of
trees, windows are often draped with sparkling cotton, wool,
and tinsel.

And in the Ukraine a Christmas tree is not complete unless
it has a spider and web for good luck.

For more on Christmas Tree and other winter and holiday
treats visit: http://www.apluswriting.net/christmas/xmastree.htm

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Copyright: 2005 Marilyn Pokorney

Author: Marilyn Pokorney
Freelance writer of science, nature, animals and the
environment.
Also loves crafts, gardening, and reading.
Website: http://www.apluswriting.net

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Many ask me this question: “Did moving to Mexico make you happier?” My answer to that question is a resounding “no!” Does that shock you? Does that concern you? Does that cause you to pause? Do more questions come to mind?

Moving to Mexico did not make me happy.

To explain this I am going to have to get all Dr. Phil on you. If you are from America, you know exactly who that is and what he is all about. The man had an impact on my life I must confess. You should read his books. They might have an impact on your life too.

If you were an unhappy person living in America, you will more than likely be an unhappy person living in Mexico. If you have lived a life of reacting to circumstances with depression, rage, whining, crying, complaining, stress, anger or whatever, chances are you react the same way in Mexico. Moving here is not going to change that.

Circumstances or situations in our lives are nothing more than information. When the dog pees on the carpet, when the teenaged son wrecks the car, when the boss fires you, when you lose money in the stock market, all that is in your life is information or a stimulus. How you react to that information or stimulus is your choice.

Think about this for a moment. There is nothing in the examples I mentioned that has any power over you. These are just circumstances. They are “things” that happened. They have no power to control your feelings. The teenaged son wrecking the car is just a situation. It isn’t good but it is just a situation. This situation cannot hold a gun to your head and say,

“Ok, now I demand you feel rage and scream and hit your kid.”

If you do indeed react irresponsibly in that situation, it is because it is something you chose. No one, nothing is making you do anything.

Do you get this?

This is a hard concept for the victim mentality of someone coming from the American culture of victimization. It is what we have been led to believe. Someone or something is always at fault for “making us mad!”

How many times have you said to someone,

“You make me so mad!”

That phrase and the ideology that undergirds it, is programmed into Americans’ thinking. It is as though we are on autopilot and say it without thinking.

If you have lived a life of rage, depression, anger, or whatever in America; that, dear reader, is a good indicator about how you will live in Mexico. Let me assure you there are going to be plenty of circumstances or stimuli in Mexico to which you are going to be tempted to react in the identical way you did to stimuli in America.

I cannot overemphasize this enough. Mexico will not change you. All it will do is provide you with a new set of circumstances, situations, information, or stimuli to which you will react in the same way you did in America.

If you believe moving to Mexico will change you then you are in for a big surprise and a heartbreaking disappointment.

If you are of the mind-set that someone or something else is responsible for your happiness, then you are not expatriation material so don’t waste your time and money.
Now, let me turn on a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I believe it is possible for someone to change.

I think one can learn to choose better behavior. If you’ve lived your life with an anger control problem or whatever, then get some help before expatriating to Mexico.

Trust me when I say that Mexico has plenty of circumstances, situations, information, or stimuli in life that she will throw your way.

Doug Bower is a freelance writer and book author. His most recent writing credits include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Transitions Abroad. He lives with his wife in Guanajuato, Mexico.
His new book, Mexican Living: Blogging it from a Third World Country, can be seen at http://www.lulu.com/content/126241

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How many people have to come forward with horror stories of gringo behavior coming out of San Miguel de Allende before someone realizes there is a problem? Last week, a gringo walks into a restaurant and announces to an Australian expat, “All Mexican women are bitches.”

My Australian friend finds out from the American nutcase that he has been traveling all over Mexico and that while in San Miguel, some Mexican woman “bumped into him” and did not say “excuse me.” Convinced that this woman had plotted all her life to bump into him “on purpose,” he went on a cursing streak calling this woman every nasty name known to the English language.

Just two weeks ago, a dear friend, who would have no reason to lie or exaggerate a bit, told me of being in San Miguel at her daughter’s art show when there was a band of tattooed, body pierced Mexicans playing music in the Jardin. One surly American expat decided it was his duty to stand in front of the band and give them the finger. And I think you know of which finger I speak.

What is going on in San Miguel?

I did an informal e-mail survey of gringo expats in San Miguel, revealing 100% of those surveyed being unaware of any miscreant gringo behavior. Give me a break!

My wife and I have written an entire chapter in our book with stories from former San Miguel expats (who now live in Guanajuato) and tourists who have told us the most horrific stories about San Miguel’s gringo population.

Routinely, we introduce ourselves to new gringo faces we see here in Guanajuato. Without having to ask, some of these tourists ask us if we know what “the deal is” in San Miguel. They explain their observations and, folks they are not good!

I think I have an idea that would solve this problem;

Tags: blog, expatriate, expatriation, Guanajuato, mexican living, mexico, move to mexico, san miguel de allendeblog, expatriate, expatriation, Guanajuato, mexican living, mexico, move to mexico, san miguel de allende

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