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Not having kids, it's no big deal but the first year I lived on my own I realized why I wasn't getting sick at Xmas....
I'm allergic to most Xmas trees. (Norfolk pines don't seem to bug me, since I have one as a house plant.) Now, my father is the model for Chevy Chase's Griswold character in National Lampoons. Lights, lights, more lights. (They have to ramp up electric production just for him.... ) The biggest tree he can fit in the house, and Live, not artificial.
So little politicat gets bronchitis every Christmas from age two (the first Christmas I lived with him) to age 16. No one knows why... We move from Indiana to Florida, Florida to Arizona, around several international Military bases.... I get sick in late December every year. A few times, I spend time in hospital because of this nasty bug.
Go to college, fully expecting a lather rinse repeat.... stay healthy. I didn't go home that year, have own apartment I paid for, why give up such a pleasant space when home will be bicker, bicker, bicker?
I avoid all forms of christmas trees now. I shop as much as possible before they arrive so I don't even have to go to the grocery in December. When we had a foster child, we built this framework of wire, ribbon, lights and it was really gorgeous, but the father got custody later and since then.... well... it's hard.
Besides, while that tree hurts me when dead, it's a great thing when alive. And an artifical one is just one more use for oil we can avoid.
Politicat
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