- Joined
- Oct 22, 2022
- Country
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When someone retires
from work, it makes more time for fun!
(Yes, normally I'd also say decorating, but I needed a rhyme for swimming. When I was a kid, we'd usually refer to decorating a Christmas tree as "trimming the tree" and there would be "tree-trimming parties" to put the ornaments on the bigger ones like at our church or the community centre. I suspect trimming with that meaning is a British term as my family and most of our neighbours were from the UK. In my condo building lobby each year we have a Christmas tree and a menorah, with one of the several Jewish residents taking on the responsibility of adding a candle to it each day. My granddaughter in Aberdeen has neighbours who are Jewish and who put up a tree in December and trim it with Chanukah-symbol ornaments! The lighted tree itself is a pagan symbol anyway, and doesn't refer to any religion, just a symbol of warmth and light at the darkest time of year.)
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Although the Amelia Bedelia books were around when I was in library school, they weren't included in our children's literature course nor at the library where I did a two-week practicum in the children's department, so I've heard the name but never read them (nor did my daughter, as far as I can remember). But in the heavily-British neighbourhood of Vancouver where I grew up, notices in the local newspaper for community tree-trimming parties were always worded something like "Everyone invited to a tree-trimming party! Come and help us deck the halls and put the ornaments on a 12-foot tree!" So as to cover all the bases for new neighbours from other countries who might expect help was needed to get a huge tree in and upright in the community centre or wherever. 
