We weren’t allowed to have Christmas Trees in prison.  They had one briefly in the chapel but someone got a stick up their butt and it was removed.

     This is the first year I had it together enough (3-1/2 years after release) to get one.  Normally I go for a live tree and plant it afterwards but just haven’t been feeling up to a trudge into the woods so went with the dead variety this time.  Sometimes the small things mean a lot.

     And really, if you understand the symbolism it’s not so small.  In Acts, Galatians, and Peter, Jesus is hanged on a tree, not a cross and likely that is the way it really went down as the Roman tradition of using a cross for crucification didn’t really take hold until about 100 years later.