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A big tree arrives
By adamg on Wed, 11/07/2018 - 9:59am
CarCarli spotted the Faneuil Hall Marketplace Christmas tree arriving this morning.
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Comments
too soon
All Christmas* trees should be banned from city limits on midnight on Thanksgiving.
Thanks in advance for all agreeing with me on this new policy.
Hell, its not even Veterans
Hell, its not even Veterans Day yet. Obnoxious christmas pushers hate The Troops.
Nice, but too early
When I was young in the 60s we barely started any Christmas activity until two weeks before Christmas. Now,two weeks before Christmas most of the Christmas items are removed from the shelves of retail stores and shoved haphazardly onto one "50% off" table in the back to make room for the Valentine's day merchandise. It's insanity.
Did you also tie an onion on your belt?
Give us a LEGITIMATE reason
why the Christmas season has to be forced on the public earlier and earlier every year.
Really?
Do you REALLY like walking around retail establishments two weeks before Christmas and seeing all Valentine's Day merchandise? I know in the scheme of things it is nothing but a first world problem, but it's still pretty damn obnoxious.
When my siblings and I were growing up,
the Christmas season, including lighting Christmas trees, and the singing/playing of Christmas Carols, didn't start until the day after Thanksgiving. It's been starting way too early lately, but the only thing to do is ignore it until it's officially supposed to start, if one gets the drift.
What you don't get
This thing ain't lit.
It has to be raised, decorated and THEN it is lit AFTER Thanksgiving.
Santa isn't real honey - it ain't magic. Trucks and cranes are involved.
And we are tired of your drift, too.
So what if the tree isn't lit yet?
That's all the more reason to wait a little bit longer to put it up.
Did I say Santa was real? Come off the BS, will you?
So what if it is raised, decorated and lit after Thanksgiving?
I'm aware of the fact that trucks and cranes are involved.
And lots of posters on here, including myself, are goddamned sick and tired of YOUR arrogance, nastiness, pettiness and
your "I'm holier than thou" attitude, which pisses me, and other people off, no end.
Nova Scotia, you're welcome
but how much longer can we accept a free tree before it gets weird? What if you just saved us a good one to buy?
This isn't the Nova Scotia tree
That's the one that gets put on the Common.
And while it's nice and charming that Nova Scotia sends us a thank-you tree every year (which I think it is), were one to get all crabby about it, as one inevitably does in a forum such as this, one might point out that Nova Scotia also uses the tree to promote itself as a tourist destination, in a market that is close enough and well off enough to be receptive to such advertising.
Nova Scotia loves giving this tree
People compete to have their trees picked, there's ceremonies when it's cut and long it's path to Boston. You have to read about the explosion there to realize how grateful Nova Scotians are for the help from Boston until you do. It was the biggest explosion to date until Hiroshima in a crowded harbor with high density close by. If it weren't for the geography, more people would have died or been blinded by the glass than actually were. One of the ship's giant anchors flew over a mile into town - it's been left where it landed as a memorial. Within a day, Boston had loaded up trains full of medical supplies and medical personnel as well as food and clothing - they even had to help dig the train out in a blizzard to get there quicker. It's a big deal for Nova Scotia to send the tree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSuX9RvLq54
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4cJBf2ECKk
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/12/06/two-ships-c...
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-great-halifax-explosion
https://www.amazon.com/Curse-Narrows-Halifax-Disaster-1917/dp/0802714587...
Also worth noting
...is that Nova Scotia -- Cape Breton in particular -- has had a pretty significant "ex-pat" population down through the years in Greater Boston and elsewhere in New England (or "The Boston States" as they're called). Sad to say, the numbers are not what they were, at least not in Boston: The older generations are passing on, and there is less immigration from the island nowadays. But go to the Canadian American Club in Watertown on some Friday night, or even better, to one of their ceilidhs (dance parties), and you can still get a sense of the people and their culture, and their connection to Boston.
Except this is is not that Tree
Nova Scotia provides the "Official Boston Common Christmas Tree" -- the Faneuil Hall / Quincy Market Tree and its lighting is not an "Official City of Boston" event -- just a commercially sponsored venture
I believe that this tree came from upstate NY
A few years ago
I found out that my Grandfather helped clean up the aftermath of that disaster.
Given that most eastern Canadians of a certain age had been sent to war like my great uncle Frank, a call went out through Quebec for young men not of fighting age to take an early break from school and head to the area. Grandpa would have been 15 - too young for the military, but old enough to join the relief effort. He was apparently sent in to round up, rescue, and care for horses that got loose in the chaos.
He was quite the storyteller. It must have been absolutely horrific if he never talked about it.
I went to the tree lighting last year in honor of his memory - the 100th anniversary.
Kind of brings home how devastating this explosion was, how much Boston helped, and why we are still receiving gratitude trees 100 years later.