I'm pet-sitting over the holidays, which means I am in a house with a lot more tv channels than I'm accustomed to. While flipping through the endless options this weekend I came across a program talking about the origins of varied holiday traditions that abound. While I've pondered the meaning behind some of my own automatic traditions before, this show offered history and reasoning I'd never heard before. One of my favorite traditions is decorating an evergreen tree and making a holiday wreath for the front door. The historical interpretation I find most connection to is that of hope for spring and a new year, shown by the tree's green life surviving through winter. We also burn