Woke up yesterday with a sore throat, headache, dizzy as a hoot owl, and not feeling well at all, when the two days prior I’d been on top of the world.
Yep, the tree. We have to have an artificial tree: I’m so allergic to trees in general it’s pathetic, and can’t even touch raw or living oak wood—I could NOT have been a Druid—but cut evergreen has been the bane of my Christmases lifelong.
As a kid I was sick every December, and would come down with a roaring ear infection that would keep me abed during most every Christmas, and with an infection that would last into mid-January. Ie, when our tree came down, and when everybody else had to put theirs out, I’d begin to recover. For those of you who don’t have allergies—the infection follows shortly on the irritation of tissues that comes from bad post-nasal drip. It’s such fun. In those Jurassic days, every school, shop, church, and most houses had cut evergreen all over the place. There was no escaping it.
Of course in the 1940’s nobody knew much about allergy, and half the medical profession didn’t believe in it, outside of ‘hay fever’. I was accused of going outside without my cap, or scarf, or maybe it was gloves; I was bundled indoors at the first hint of snow and told I was too sickly to go out and play. And there would be the tree, cut fir, or worse, at my grandmother’s house, cedar straight from the fields; and I’d be abed again for the season, shut in WITH the source of my problem, with all doors and windows sealed against ‘cold air’. I tried to tell them the ‘cold air’ relieved the problem. But of course the doctor knew best.
It wasn’t until the ’50’s that they figured it out, and we got one of the early holiday trees: aluminum. You couldn’t put lights ON it: they came from a color wheel that sat on the floor next to it. You could hang ornaments on it, and we were counted very modern; but they still had real trees at school, and at church, and I was a bit better for longer, but still sick every Christmas. I was forbidden to go out in the snow because, yes, now baby brother was reactive to ‘cold air’ and ‘sickly’, and I couldn’t go out because the baby would want to go out. Sigh.
Then we discovered a new thing: instead of me growing out of it, it got worse. I got to where I couldn’t visit a house with a tree. I taught school for a decade—and routinely, every Christmas, I’d totally lose my voice: they still hung garland in school. So I’d be voiceless for at least a week.
And the new fiber trees have one drawback: if you don’t replace them every 3 years, they get mold. And mold has just about the same effect on me as real evergreen does. My ears ache, my nose pours, and, as with many molds, they’re psychoactive, and I get depressed and Jane gets her own version of it.
Well, darn it, we have a tree we love: the last of the really good fiberoptics. And it’s, yes, old. And we should replace it, but it’s up, and it’s beautiful, one of the prettiest trees we’ve ever had…
I went off to Costco yesterday while Jane was on the ice and got an air purifier, and we set it beside the tree going full blast, which I think, this morning, is helping. It’s one of those Oreck things, with a killer throughput and good filters, and the air is much cleaner in the living room. My room only has one of the passive electrostatic flow sorts, that puts out a trickle of good air. But at least I’m on the upswing: I slept all yesterday afternoon, watched Hell’s Kitchen, then went back to bed and slept hard; and this morning, though I now have some of the symptoms of a sinus infection, congestion and the remains of a sore throat, I’m hoping I can throw it off.
I could so easily become a Grinch. But I’m going to enjoy the season. If it takes antibiotics again to do it.
but the bedrooms can take turns with the air cleaner, can’t they? sounds like a wonderful gadget
They can, and have: best if it can run overnight. Cycles all the air in the room through in 1 hour, but in 12 hours it’s done better than a statistical good job.
We used to have 14 1/2 foot cathedral ceilings and we would choose the biggest trees to cut at the tree farm, often 13+ feet tall and over 6 feet in diameter, impressive enough that we named them e.g. “Hairy” and “Sir Douglas Fir”. They were almost impossible for one person to put up given their height, girth and fresh-cut weight. I finally permanently mounted a 5/8″ pulley high on the side of the beam and used a nylon rope tied near the top of the tree to pull them up and tied it off to hold them straight. We had to use our extension ladder propped against the beam in order to trim the top of the tree. One year the transfer station attendant couldn’t believe that the tree we were dropping off came from a personal residence.
What fun! When we lived on the lake in OKC, and everyone decorated like mad, especially for the water-side, we had several trees, and consequently we now have just—well, 4, if you count ‘the boys’ tree’, which is Jane’s, actually (the boys being Stephen and Wesley), and the woodland tree, and the tree-tree, which is 6′, and fat, and the kitchen tree, which is one of those bare-branch sparkly sorts. Nothing in our house escapes Christmas once Jane starts decorating. Macy’s should hire her for windows!
I used to get huge trees for my high ceilings…..stopped when A) they became prohibitively expensive, B) when the dog could not learn not to wag near the tree. Last year I bought a potted four and a half foot Norway Spruce. For about $10.00 more than a six ft. cut tree. It goes on a table by the windows. Came through the summer beautifully, but no hand blown glass or antique ornaments this year. The kittehs are teenagers and act it. Aloysius pulled down my lit icicle lights and made a nest of them. Alas my camera was not at hand. The trouble is that they are so *cute* in their misbehavior.
I feel fortunate that my allergies are pretty seasonal and easily controlled. I do have multiple soap, cleaner, perfume allergies. The only food I absolutely cannot eat is chocolate.
I like the idea of an air purifier. The high today has been about 18….8 at 5:30 this morning….not conducive to opening windows!
Well, we splurged extremely and gave each other air purifiers for our own workspaces: we figure NOT spending money for antibiotics, cold meds, decongestants, and such—plus a few sacrifices like not going out a few times when we want to, and we’re quite happy: the living room air is considerably improved, and being able to clean the air during ‘fire season’ in the summer will be very valuable. That’s whole half months when work goes amiss because the writer can’t breathe.
So we figure—it’ll pay for itself over time. What we got is the Oreck tabletop 12AIR, which is not the top of the reviews, but the reviews I found didn’t have a clue how much air it moved, which dropped it hugely in the ratings. It actually has 3 levels, a medium that puts more air through than many, and a highlevel a throughput that will blow your hair as you pass, and has meaningful electrostatic filters which you can clean instead of replacing. We also got it at Costco prices.
I have a EdenPURE one my grandma bought during his home shopping sprees. I’m not sure if if it does anything, but it doesn’t seem to hurt. I just have to be sure the ozone function is OFF because that isn’t safe. Not even sure why it is an option on there. I had it on for a while and I’d wake up feeling sick. Like the gas stove had been left on and my head would explode. Looked it up online and was enlightened. My apartment doesn’t seem to be my problem though. I work in a 120 year old building with mold, dust and who knows what else. The last four years have been bad and that corresponds with my working environment.
*meant to say “grandpa” there. Oops. Wish there was an edit option.
Allowing users to edit comments on WordPress can require paid plugins or changes to the code, but there is a good alternative.
Ajax Comment Preview is a simple, straightforward plugin which works well.
It adds a ‘Preview’ button next to the ‘Post Comment’ button, which at least allows you to see how your post will look, and proofread it, before posting.
Thanks! I’ll look into that!
Allergies are miserable. The house where I grew up (in New England) had an ancient coal/wood furnace, and I’d come down with something every winter just about the time it was fired up. Then somewhere around spring I could start to breath again. Dust in the ducting combined with pollution, pollen, and all the air quality problems of an old house meant I was truly miserable most winters. The topper on the whole issue was the medications I was supposed to take for the resultant asthma either had me bouncing off the walls or made me feel like I had been run over by a truck. Or both. What fun.
Now, after a move to the west coast where mother nature washes the air quite thoroughly and a few generations of asthma and allergy medications later, I actually feel HUMAN almost all winter! I’m definitely a fan of air purifiers, and I keep one in the bedroom running all the time. The bedroom is a loft, so its working on the whole place, but it certainly helps to not wake up with sore eyes and a runny nose every morning!
I can’t ever recall reacting to the Christmas tree, and I haven’t actually done one here for years, but I have a yard full of little bonsai trees. I’ve noticed the pines, yews, redwoods, and cedars don’t bother me, but the junipers are horribly irritating even when they’re NOT spitting out pollen. Most bonsai peeps know ‘juni rash’ means red welts from reaching through scratchy foliage, and even the scent of the foliage is enough to make me sneeze.
have you tried a Living (grown in pot) tree
I wondered if the cut tree was giving off some chemical defence because it had been cut?
Not a bad theory: it seems mostly to be mold, but no few plants exude nastiness when attacked. I did once have a Norfolk pine indoors, that seemed successful…when I first started out in my own place, I had two strands of beads left from a bead curtain and 4-6 red glass balls…the last of the balls finally faded and broke a decade ago! But it did work.
Right now, though, we’d have to use a really big tree to get all our favorite ornaments on it: my secret vice is snow fairies (the Hallmark ice fairy, 1981—and I just priced it on the market and decided, well, I am very glad to have them, and as many as I need of them, and I am glad they are not higher, so I don’t have to feel guilty about not selling them! I’d be devastated if they were worth like hundreds! because then I would have to think about it—) And Jane’s is the ever-available stags! Not just any old reindeer or deer—a stag with attitude and preferably sweeping design in the antlers…
Well, so we have this unique combo, with stars and snowflakes for garlands! And they’re too big and too many for the standard potted tree.
Juniper and I get along iffily. We have it in the yard, but I try not to handle it.
BTW, search ‘bonsai’ on Amazon, and you will turn up a site for really exotic bonsai seeds that you will not find in ordinary nurseries.
This sound a little bit like a SF story. Nth generation spacer from a purified sterile environment arrives on a forest planet and is allergic to trees… Actually Brian Aldiss did something like that in the Heliconia trillogy.
i grew up with artificial trees – not sure why my mother went that route – and since i love putting up the tree just after thanksgiving and then decorating inside and out an artificial tree just works best. when my daughter was little i didn’t have to worry about her eating pine needles, since i have almost always had a cat (or multiples) and usually a dog, the artificial trees don’t encourage behavior likely to irritate me ;P i do have plastic ornaments for the bottom level of the tree. and a few years ago we bought a fiber optic lit tree – absolutely fabulous!!!!! a light show by itself. ms. cherryh, jane should check out the led lights at home depot that are labeled “light show” i suspect y’all would like them 😉 since moving south 19 yrs ago i have allergy issues throughout the year but especially with the damn tree pollen in the spring so not having fresh greenery in the house ensures neither i nor hubby will have any problems.
only problem with our fiber optic tree is it won’t handle the weight of most of my collection of iridescent glass ornaments so i’m starting to work on other ways to display them w/o any of the cats deciding they are new play toys ;P
oh and target has new little battery operated tinsel and fiber optic trees – we’re going to visit my parents between xmas and new years, am taking my pair with us so i have xmas lights at the hotel 😉
D