Word: firs
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...President will get his favorite sweet potatoes with marshmaUows and even some monkey bread, a thick, spongy concoction he relishes. The White House is laced with vivid red, green, gold and white decorations. There is a giant bunch of mistletoe in the foyer, a 19½-ft. Douglas fir from Spartansburg, Pa., and the gingerbread house in the State Dining Room has a jelly bean path to the door...
...many legends explaining the origins of the modern Christmas tree, three are the most popular. Some scholars trace the "tannenbaum" back to the fir tree erected by Boniface, the 8th-century English missionary known as the Apostle of Germany, in place of a sacred oak of Odin. Others point to the "paradise" trees of knowledge of good and evil, used as stage props in 15th century German Christmas plays...
...bestows the honor on the Protestant reformer Martin Luther. One Christmas Eve, travelling alone through a snow-covered forest, Luther supposedly noticed brilliant stars twinkling among the evergreen trees. The scene made such a deep impression on him, that to recapture it for his family, he cut a small fir tree, dragged it into the nursery and placed lighted candles on the branches...
Whatever its origin, the Christmas tree spread throughout Germany and was brought to America by Hessian troops during the Revolutionary War. But the tree did not gain popularity until the mid-1800's, when a picture of Queen Victoria's elaborate fir appeared in Godey's Lady's Book, the fashionable magazine...
...seven years, Barone has been a vice president of Peter D. Hart Associates, a polling firm in Washington, so the statistical side of the Almanac fir right in with his vocation. But he adds, "Any number is an inadequate description of reality. Numbers are a science, reality is an art." Barone, the Chevy and a good road-map turned Ujifusa's notion into a reality...