Rock Out Safely This May

Posted by Treetopia in Features | Travel & Recreation | Trivia - (0 Comments)

Get the most out of this summer’s hottest music festivities without fear

May hosts some of the hottest music festivals throughout the continent and, as it happens, May is also Emergency Medical Services Month (EMS).  Music festivals draw bigger crowds each year and, with such a great number of people in one place, it can’t be helped that some people who require medical attention will not be immediately attended to by EMS.   Rock out in some of May’s music festivals and keep yourself and others safe with some first-aid knowledge that would make your paramedics proud.
First Aid Station

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Beer for Everything

Posted by Treetopia in Features | Food & Wine | Trivia - (0 Comments)

As part of National Beer Day on April 7, here are awesome ways to make use of beer other than drinking

alcohol-2101_640According to history, beer is the oldest drink enjoyed by civilization and may even be as old as civilization itself. Beer’s history can be traced in history and literature, and the oldest proven record of beer is between 4,000 to 6,000 years ago in the poem to honor Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of brewing. However, as humans evolved, so did beer and its uses. Here are some awesome ways to use beer today:

Bake It With Cake and Eat It Too!

Nowadays, there are recipes for almost everything that can be ingested by the human body. One of the fantastic creations of the beer-loving culture is the beer bread. Making beer bread isn’t as difficult as you’d imagine. You will need the following to get started with this classic beer bread recipe shared by Bridget from Bake at 350:
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Awesome Ideas for Color Therapy Month

Posted by Treetopia in Decorating Tips | Features | Home Decor | Treetopia's Best | Trivia - (Comments Off)

Jazz up your home and control your mood swings using the psychology of color

Have you ever wondered why it’s popular to wear blue during a job interview or why cheerful people are said to have a “sunny disposition?” Perhaps you’re also wondering why looking out into the turquoise sea water tends to make you think, reminisce, or reflect.

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Whether you believe it or not, all these colors and more have a certain emotional and psychological effect on us all. Treetopia gives you a glimpse of what some of the more popular colors trigger with special focus on 2013’s Color of the Year: green.

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St. Patrick’s Day Special

Posted by Treetopia in Artificial Christmas Trees | Decorating Tips | Features | Food & Wine | Treetopia's Best | Trivia - (0 Comments)

Channel your inner Irish and bring the Emerald Isles into your home

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated every 17th of March, the feast day of St. Patrick himself. Aside from the parade and parties where pints and quarts of beer are passed around, this day holds a greater significance for the people of the Emerald Isles. Here are some tidbits and fun suggestions on how to bring out your inner Irish.

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The Colors of the New Year: New Year’s Day Traditions from Around the World

Posted by Treetopia in Features | Trivia - (0 Comments)

Take a look at fabulous and wonderfully weird traditions for ringing in the New Year

Now that the Christmas festivities are over, people are getting ready to celebrate the arrival of 2013. While New Year’s Eve is a night of fabulous parties and food-filled activities for some, it is also a night linked to tradition for others. Take a look at some traditions of how people from different parts of the world ring in the New Year.

Carnival and Color

In some areas in South Africa, the arrival of the New Year is celebrated with a burst of color and a carnival atmosphere. People take to the streets wearing colorful costumes as they dance to the beat of the drums.

 

First-Footing

Many areas in Europe still practice the first-footing tradition wherein the first person to enter the house after midnight is a young male to give luck to the household. The young male carries coal, bread, and money into the house to ensure that the household would have enough of these for the entire year.

 

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How Well Do You Know Your Christmas Traditions?

Posted by Treetopia in Trivia - (0 Comments)

Do you know why you do the Christmas traditions you grew up with? Read on and find out!

Now that we have stuffed ourselves with a delightful Thanksgiving feast sprinkled with love, we can direct our attention to the next big feast—Christmas. Christmas is certainly one of the holidays with a treasure trove of traditions, but do you know why and how exactly these traditions came about?

Oh Christmas Tree

The most popular Christmas icon, especially for children, is the Christmas tree. We’ve all been though the phase of counting how many beautifully wrapped gifts nestled under the tree have our name on it. But did you know that the tradition of decorating trees came long before Christmas itself? It is believed that ancient pagan societies that practiced animism brought and decorated trees indoors to please the spirits and ensure a good harvest. Trees only became linked to Christmas when Christianity started to spread across Germany. The popularization of the modern Christmas tree came about when Prince Albert, originally from Germany, introduced the Christmas tree to England after he married Queen Victoria in 1840.

Christmas Stockings

The tradition of hanging Christmas stockings by the chimney is linked with the origin of Santa Claus’ story. It is believed that St. Nicholas threw three bags of gold coins down the chimney of a poor family whose father could not marry off his daughters because he had no money for dowries. It so happened that the daughters hung their stockings by the fireplace to dry and they caught the bags of gold coins that were dropped.

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Famous & Beloved Anti-Holiday Characters

Posted by Treetopia in Treetopia Christmas Inspirations | Trivia - (0 Comments)

Get to know who’s who on Santa’s naughty list

When the holiday season begins to make itself felt, people usually imagine warmth, love and everything nice. While everyone revels in the cheerful atmosphere of the holidays, these characters are waving their fists at everyone for being in a festive mood, at least at first.


Photo by perpetualplum via flickr. CC BY 2.0

Ebenezer Scrooge

Bah Humbug! We’re sure you’ve heard of this phrase before but not everyone knows that it came from Ebenezer Scrooge, the old grouch from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This cold-hearted, greedy man hates Christmas, especially since he is forced to give his employee, Bob Cratchit, paid time-off. On Christmas Eve, he is visited by the doomed spirit of his old friend, Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, who reveal to him the evil of his ways. At these revelations, Scrooge experiences a change of heart and becomes a kind, generous old man.


Photo by Sarah_Ackerman via flickr. CC BY 2.0

The Grinch

From Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. “Dr. Seuss,” the Grinch is a green creature who lives in a cave in Mt. Crumpit at the North of Whoville and once tried to steal Christmas. A grouch, the Grinch hated the noise made on Christmas day, so he took all the gifts from the Who girls and boys. That would really cross him off Santa’s list, but when the Grinch realized that Christmas meant something more than gifts and feats, his heart, which was originally two sizes smaller, became three sizes larger. How’s that for a change of heart?

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Thanksgiving Trivia

Posted by Treetopia in Trivia - (0 Comments)

Get to know fabulous facts surrounding the much beloved holiday

We usually celebrate Thanksgiving with a feast surrounded by our families and filled with joyful conversation. After being thankful for the meal and the time spent with the family at dinner, avoid prodding questions from family members with some trivia about Thanksgiving. Here are some to get you started:


Photo by Edsel L via flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0

Thanksgiving is a pilgrim celebration.

No, it’s not a Pilgrim’s celebration, but a “pilgrim” celebration. Thanksgiving has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November since Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill proclaiming that day as a national Thanksgiving holiday, but it took more than 300 years before that date was finally officiated. Thanksgiving moved from a three-day feast during the harvest season to the third Thursday of December, then from February 19, by order of George Washington, to any day the governor of the state declared it. By the time Thanksgiving finally settled on the fourth Thursday of November in 1941 by Abraham Lincoln and his successors, it had moved through the calendar, much like a pilgrim on a quest for a settlement.

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