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That's an ugly tree
There are certain standards of beauty for a Christmas tree, Livescience.com says. From the perspective of Iowa tree farmer Lynne Aldrich - and her experience with customers - "an ugly tree is one with gaps between its branches and a top that doesn't end in a perfect point. Usually, people arrive looking for symmetry and an absence of gaps. 'They want it perfect all the way around, forgetting that most people put it in a corner or up against a wall,' Ms. Aldrich said."
A card from Sparky
"Dogs and cats are joining in the annual ritual of sending season's greetings," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Card makers are rolling out designs that enable people to send cards from pets to commemorate nearly every occasion that humans do. … Hallmark's pet cards, which include greetings like 'Happy Mew Year' and 'Merry Yips-mas,' try to avoid overly serious or sentimental messages, [says the company's editorial director of personalized greetings] Still, the company sells one signed 'Love,' followed by a cat paw print."
The pet jet-set
A special Pawssport charter flight, operated by Elgin, Ill.-based Valley Air Service Inc., caters to pets that travel onboard with their owners, the Chicago Tribune reports. "At a time when many airlines have stopped providing pillows and blankets to passengers travelling in the economy section as part of cutting costs, pets on Valley Air flights are given a blanket to sleep on and treats and toys to enjoy. With less than a week until Christmas, Valley Air presented holiday baskets on Sunday containing snowflake toys; 'cookies'; a blanket, of course; assorted spa amenities; and other items. The human passengers were taken care of, too. Don't scoff or be jealous, please. Chances are, many animal owners wouldn't think twice about sending their pets first class if they could afford it. One Valley Air customer even took his pet fish on a flight."
From flowers to funk
"The iconic image of the Baby Boom generation is a 1960s-era snapshot of an exuberant, long-haired, rebellious young adult," Huffingtonpost.com says. "That portrait wasn't entirely accurate even then, but it's hopelessly out of date now. This famously huge cohort of Americans finds itself in a funk as it approaches old age. On Jan. 1, the oldest Baby Boomers will turn 65. … Perched on the front stoop of old age, Baby Boomers are more downbeat than other age groups about the trajectory of their own lives and the direction of [America]as a whole. Some of this pessimism is related to life cycle. … Some of the gloominess, however, appears to be particular to Boomers, who bounded onto the national stage in the 1960s with high hopes for remaking society, but who've spent most of their adulthood trailing other age cohorts in overall life satisfaction."
Paddling in booze
"It's not unusual to hear about someone jumping into work with both feet. Dr. Peter Lommer Kristensen did it literally," the Los Angeles Times reports. "Dr. Kristensen, of the Hillerod Hospital in Hillerod, Denmark, and two of his colleagues investigated an old Danish myth that it is possible to get drunk by immersing your feet in alcohol. To do so, they soaked their feet in a washtub containing three bottles of vodka for three hours. They measured blood concentrations of alcohol every half-hour and rated themselves on a scale of zero to 10 on self-confidence, urge to speak and the number of times they desired spontaneous hugs. The trio reported in the Christmas issue of the journal BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) that they found no evidence of absorption of alcohol - and concluded that driving a vehicle or skippering a boat with boots full of vodka seems to be safe and that brewery workers cannot become intoxicated by falling into a brewery vat."
Winning a snowball fight
Men's Health magazine advises:
- Grab snow from near the base of a tree. Trees give off warmth, which can soften snow - and soft, wet snow makes the best projectiles.
- Snowballs are best when they're about the size of a tennis ball. Any larger and they won't fly fast or may break up en route.
- Don't aim directly at your opponent. Instead, throw your snowball to the right or left to make your foe jog away from that direction. Then throw your kill shot to where he or she is heading.
Santa's Hall of Fame
The Santa Claus Hall of Fame in Indiana says an Illinois man is the first living Santa to be inducted, United Press International reports. Phil Wenz, 48, has been dressing as Santa since he was 4 and later served for 20 years as the jolly oldster in Santa's Village in East Dundee, Ill. The other 13 inductees include the first department store Santa and several men born in the 1800s.
Thought du jour
"When hope is hungry, everything feeds it."
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-83), U.S. journalist