Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'christmas tree'

December 30, 2013

The Christmas Tree as a Source of Wonder

Related to some recent discussions about the market for Christmas trees, an irreducibly commercial aspect of the holiday, I ran across this delightful post about a little-known poem by T.S. Eliot, “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees.” Continue Reading...
December 23, 2013

Christmas by the Numbers

As the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world, Christmas is a time of produces many things — joy, happiness, gratitude, reverence. And numbers. Lots of peculiar, often large, numbers. Continue Reading...
December 20, 2013

O Tannenbaum and Fair Trade

A couple of further points in reply to Micah Mattix’s response on buying Christmas trees, based on his original post here. 1) I think Mattix’s characterization of the buyer as “selfish” goes a bit too far, and is not an accurate characterization of a good deal of market activity. Continue Reading...
December 20, 2013

A Living Wage for a Living Tree?

Over at the American Conservative, Micah Mattix reflects on the Christmas tree market, which in his neck of the woods is “notoriously unstable.” In Ashe County, North Carolina, says Mattix, a dilemma faces the small tree farmer: “It is not sell or starve, but it is sell or go without a new septic tank, a repaired roof, a mended this or that.” Continue Reading...
December 13, 2013

TCC: Lessons in Liberty & Restraint

Last week, an exciting new organization called the Transatlantic Christian Council (TCC) hosted its inaugural conference. The theme of the conference was “Sustaining Freedom”, which aligns well with the Council’s mission “to develop a transatlantic public policy network of European and North American Christians and conservatives in order to promote the civic good, as understood within the Judeo-Christian tradition on which our societies are largely based.” Continue Reading...
December 04, 2007

A ‘Green’ Christmas Tree

Many of us have yet to finalize plans for our Christmas decorating this year. If you haven’t yet decided what kind of tree to put up, consider the truly environmentally-friendly choice: cutting down a live tree. Continue Reading...