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Since the 1930s, New York has been lit up for the holidays by the Rockefeller Christmas tree. Typically a Norway spruce standing at approximately 70 to 100 feet and carefully selected each year (for the past three decades!) by Erik Pauze, the head gardener for the Rockefeller Center, Christmas in the city wouldn't be the same without it. However, our readers have been wondering: what happens to the tree once the excitement of the holidays is over?
The answer is that since 2007, it's been donated to Habitat for Humanity and repurposed to provide lumber for homes.

Once it's taken down at the end of the holiday season and chopped into large pieces, the wood is sawed down at a mill in New Jersey and then processed at a landscaping company where it is dried, milled, and planed into smooth two-by-four and two-by-six boards that go on to make flooring, porches, cabinetry, furniture, framing reinforcement, and more.
 
Nine days before Christmas in 1965, astronauts Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford aboard the Gemini 6 told Mission Control that they saw an "unidentified flying object" about to enter Earth's atmosphere, traveling in the polar orbit from north to south. Just as things got tense, they interrupted the broadcast with “Jingle Bells,” as Wally played a small harmonica accompanied by Tom shaking a handful of small sleigh bells.
 
That circular saw in your garage came from a humble Shaker woman who noticed men wasting energy with old pit saws. Tabitha Babbitt created the first circular saw prototype in 1813 by simply attaching a notched tin disk to her spinning wheel.

Sarah "Tabitha" Babbitt (December 9, 1779 - December 10, 1853) was a tool_maker and inventor.

Babbitt is credited with inventing the first circular saw for use in a saw mill in 1813. According to the Shakers, Babbitt was watching men use the difficult two-man whipsaw when she noticed that half of their motion was wasted. She proposed creating a round blade to increase efficiency. The circular saw was connected to a water-powered machine to reduce the effort to cut lumber.

The first circular saw she allegedly made is in Albany, New York. In the summer of 1948, a version of Babbitt's saw, built to her specifications, was on display at a Shaker exhibit at Fenimore House in Cooperstown, N. Y., as a loan from the New York State Museum. Because Babbitt did not patent her circular saw and the reference to her invention exists only in Shaker lore, there is controversy over whether she was the true first inventor of the saw. According to some accounts, two French men patented the circular saw in the United States after reading about Babbitt's saw in Shaker papers.
 
According to History.com, that log-shaped, chocolate-y dessert that you present to your guests every year has its roots in Gaelic and Celtic Winter Solstice traditions.

"To cleanse the air of the previous year's events and to usher in the spring, families would burn logs decorated with holly, pinecones, or ivy," the site states. "Wine and salt were also often used to anoint the logs. Once burned, the log's ashes were valuable treasures said to have medicinal benefits and to guard against evil."

Over the centuries, the good-luck ritual developed into this tasty holiday treat.

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Doc said:
I wonder how long will it take for that signal to travel 42 lightyears?
Click to expand...
It will take 42 lightyears !

The light-year is a measure of distance, not time. It is the total distance that a beam of light, moving in a straight line, travels in one year. To obtain an idea of the size of a light-year, take the circumference of the earth (24,900 miles), lay it out in a straight line, multiply the length of the line by 7.5 (the corresponding distance is one light-second), then place 31.6 million similar lines end to end. The resulting distance is almost 6 trillion (6,000,000,000,000) miles!
 
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September 1897, Francis Pharcellus Church, a former Civil War correspondent and editor at the New York Sun, received a letter from then 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon:
Dear Editor — I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon 115 West Ninety Fifth Street

Church’s anonymous editorial page reply eventually became, and remains, a perennial favorite.
Translated into dozens of languages, Church’s testament to the spirit of Christmas has the notable distinction of being the “most reprinted newspaper editorial.”
Responding to Virginia’s letter, Church celebrates the innocence of childhood and the power of faith:
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

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Luckytrim said:
It will take 42 lightyears !

The light-year is a measure of distance, not time. It is the total distance that a beam of light, moving in a straight line, travels in one year. To obtain an idea of the size of a light-year, take the circumference of the earth (24,900 miles), lay it out in a straight line, multiply the length of the line by 7.5 (the corresponding distance is one light-second), then place 31.6 million similar lines end to end. The resulting distance is almost 6 trillion (6,000,000,000,000) miles!
Click to expand...
Got it. I'm with you on the lightyear distance. But I don't believe sound 'waves' travel as fast as lightyears, since sounds is indeed in waves. But no matter, the 30 second commercial has yet to hit it's target. But would anything in-between would be able to hear the commercial while it is on the way, even in space?

edit to add:
from duck duck go search:
The speed of sound is approximately 340 meters per second, while the speed of light is about 300,000,000 meters per second. This significant difference means you see lightning before you hear thunder during a storm.
 
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Doc said:
Got it. I'm with you on the lightyear distance. But I don't believe sound 'waves' travel as fast as lightyears, since sounds is indeed in waves. But no matter, the 30 second commercial has yet to hit it's target. But would anything in-between would be able to hear the commercial while it is on the way, even in space?

edit to add:
from duck duck go search:
The speed of sound is approximately 340 meters per second, while the speed of light is about 300,000,000 meters per second. This significant difference means you see lightning before you hear thunder during a storm.
Click to expand...
... not sent in sound waves I imagine, but in radio waves ?
(No sound in a vacuum, of course...)
 
Beatrix Potter aged 25 with her pet rabbit, Benjamin Bouncer, 1891.


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Beatrix Potter, born in 1866, was a renowned English author, illustrator, and naturalist best known for her enchanting children's books featuring anthropomorphic animals.

Raised in a privileged Victorian household, Potter developed a keen interest in nature, and her childhood sketches of animals evolved into a prolific career as an artist and storyteller.

Her timeless tales, such as "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" and "The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck," have captivated generations of readers with their charming characters and vivid illustrations.

Potter's contributions extended beyond literature; she became a respected conservationist, playing a pivotal role in preserving the Lake District's natural beauty. Her legacy endures not only through her beloved stories but also through her impactful conservation efforts.
 
Luckytrim said:
... not sent in sound waves I imagine, but in radio waves ?
(No sound in a vacuum, of course...)
Click to expand...
But ...radio waves are a type of sound wave.
All this is way over my head but from what I read the data was encapsulated and somehow sent over light wave so it is the speed of light. Amazing to me no matter. Some smarts folks out there who design this stuff an make it happen. But all we are doing to do with this one is make them hungry. LOL Thanks LT.
 
  • Christmas pudding originated in medieval England in the 1420s.
  • Christmas pudding is also known as plum pudding or plum duff.
  • A typical Christmas pudding contains sugar, treacle, suet, raisins and spices.
  • Christmas pudding traditions had a Roman Catholic influence, with puddings made with 13 ingredients, representing the 12 apostles plus Christ and was stirred from east to west to remember the magi.
  • Christmas pudding is traditionally cooked on a Sunday, 4-5 weeks before Christmas.
Christmas Pudding, Holly, Leaves, Fake, Round, Circular, Brown, Fruit Cake, Ten Random Facts

  • Christmas pudding was traditionally steamed in a cloth, although pudding basins are now often used.
  • Christmas pudding is often hooked on a hook to dry after steaming, until Christmas day.
  • Christmas puddings are traditionally decorated with holly or skimmia, and usually served hot with custard.
  • Even though the Christmas pudding is known as a ‘plum pudding’, the pudding has no plums, instead it has raisins, which in old Victorian times were called plums.
  • Coins (and sometimes other trinkets) were commonly cooked in the pudding mix, and whoever was lucky enough to have a coin in their slice of pudding got to keep the coin.
 
The true origin of candy canes is hazy, mixing recorded history with a good amount of legend. Hard candy has existed for thousands of years. The expense of sugar made it a rare treat, shared on special occasions and holidays or as a reward for children’s good behavior.

Church records show that in 1670, a choirmaster at Cologne Cathedral in Germany handed out white candy sticks to keep restless children quiet during Christmas services. The sweets took a long time to finish and kept little hands and mouths busy while they weren’t singing. Worried it might seem improper to give candy in church, he added the symbolic crook to recall the shepherds of the Nativity.

Over the next century, the curved candy sticks became a holiday tradition across Germany and a favorite decoration for Christmas trees, which children got to enjoy after Epiphany on Jan. 6.

In 1847, German-Swedish immigrant August Imgard brought the tradition to America, hanging candy canes on his tree in Wooster, Ohio, and sparking a trend that continues to this day.

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For "A Christmas Story" (1983), when filming the scene in the Chinese restaurant, Melinda Dillon was purposely given the wrong script, and everyone was in on it. She had no idea that the duck would still have its head and the first time she saw it was when they were filming. Her reactions during the entire sequence were not scripted, which is what director Bob Clark was going for.
Clark cast Dillon on the basis of her similar role in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
According to Peter (Ralphie) Billingsley, not many major studios were interested in a story about a little boy in the 1940s who wanted a BB gun for Christmas. Billingsley said the studio agreed to make this film if Clark agreed to also make a horror film. The film was released just before Thanksgiving and became a surprise hit. By the time Christmas rolled around, the movie had already been pulled from most theaters because it had been "played out." After complaints were lodged at the theater owners and the studio, the film played on select screens until after the first of the year 1984. Due to this film's popularity, the Daisy Rifle Company has started producing Red Ryder BB Guns for sale during the Christmas season. It has become one of Daisy's best selling rifles.
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