The Gratitude Spot Blog
  • About Helen Bannigan

Oh, Christmas Tree

By helen@bannigan.com • December 10, 2020 • Culture, Holidays
Share

The Christmas Tree

The evergreen fir tree has traditionally been used to celebrate winter festivals (pagan and Christian) for thousands of years.

Long before Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Pagans used branches to decorate their homes during the winter solstice, as it reminded them of the spring to come.

The Romans used fir trees to decorate their temples at the festival of Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the God of agriculture.

Christians use the tree as a sign of everlasting life with God.

Share
Tweet
0
Holidays and commemorations around the world
Hanukkah Sameach

About the Author

helen@bannigan.com

You Might Also Like

  • We’re All Just Making It Up As We Go Along

  • Travel Adventures during Covid Times, with Gratitude

  • ExpatFocus Interview

  • Holidays and commemorations around the world

No Comments

    Leave a Reply Cancel Reply


    WELCOME HOME.

    WELCOME HOME.
    Seven countries. Forty-odd years of packing boxes, learning new currencies and languages, getting things gloriously wrong, and figuring it out anyway. After all that, I've come to believe that home isn't a place — it's a feeling you learn to carry with you, and occasionally stumble into somewhere unexpected. Consider this one of those places. This blog is where I think out loud about culture, identity, leadership, and the endlessly entertaining business of being human across borders. Pull up a chair. Put your feet up. Disagree with me. Share what resonates. That's the whole point. And if somewhere along the way you find yourself wondering whether I might be useful to you — whether that's helping your team actually work across cultures rather than just survive them, speaking at your next leadership event, or joining us for something altogether different at our 17th-century palazzo in the Sabine Hills of Italy — the door is open. It usually is. No hard sell. Just a warm welcome. And perhaps a cup of tea. Come find me: helen@bannigan.com · bannigan.com Curious what Executive Cultural Coaching actually means in practice? Scroll down — I promise it's more interesting than it sounds.
    Helen Bannigan

    Subscribe & Follow

    Find us on Facebook

    Glad you stopped by

    I warmly invite you to this space to explore, comment, engage and share these posts with your friends.

    Executive Cultural Coaching

    At Bannigan Communications, we work with global leaders who are smart, experienced, and occasionally baffled by why something that works perfectly well at home lands completely flat somewhere else.

    That’s not a failure of intelligence. It’s a gap in cultural fluency — and it’s entirely fixable.

    Our workshops (in-person and virtual) give executives and their teams the self-awareness, practical tools, and genuine understanding of other cultures needed to build trust, communicate effectively, and lead with confidence across borders. Less theory, more “here’s what to actually do on Monday morning.”

    Participants leave with actionable frameworks they can use immediately — whether they’re relocating, managing a global team, or simply trying to understand why their counterpart in Tokyo keeps saying yes and meaning something else entirely.

    Curious? I’d love to talk. helen@bannigan.com · bannigan.com

    Made with in Seattle

    © 2013 Solo Pine Designs, Inc. All rights reserved.