[Villages Kahuna]

I'm not certain that the absence of "real" trees in TV is caused by their cost as much as not having the "stuff" to decorate them, or the people to decorate them for.

I can't tell you how many of our neighbors have said that boxes and boxes of Christmas lights and decorations were among the items that were sold during the garage sales we all seemed to have before moving to Florida. Then when we get here we're faced with a couple problems. If we decide we want to decorate--and if we're not traveling north to be with family for the holidays--we'd have to buy all new lights, decorations, etc. But maybe more important, finding a place to store all that stuff for eleven months each year is not a small problem. It seems that among a lot of things that are different between our houses "up north" and here in sunny Florida is the amount of storage space available. For those of you who don't live here yet, that's something you'll find out soon enough.

I think those issues may have a lot more to do with changes in Christmas traditions than anything else.