Tagged: christmas

School’s out and summer means sun tans, barbeques, beach days, and…searching for Christmas Trees?

The hunt for the state holiday tree has begun. Michigan needs a 65-foot-tall evergreen that can sparkle on the lawn of the Capitol building in November.

“Everyone laughs that the process starts in June,” said Kurt Weiss with Michigan’s Department of Technology, Management and Budget, “But that’s when the process starts.”

For Michigan retailers, Christmas is over and now it’s time to focus on After Christmas sales.

Analysts say the unusually long holiday shopping season, stretching from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, generated sales numbers only modestly better than last year.

Tom Scott is with the Michigan Retailers Association.     He says gift cards were a popular present this year.   Scott says many Michiganders will redeem their gift cards during the next few weeks and probably spend a little more as well.

The holidays bring with them added stress and depression.

Lisa Laughman is an emotional wellness consultant at Michigan State University.

She says there are many reasons why people may feel stressed or depressed this time of year.   This could be the first Christmas without a loved one.    Financial challenges may be making a 'traditional' family Christmas difficult.   Some people say the recent school massacre in Connecticut is also making this feel less like Christmas. 

Michigan retailers are checking their holiday shopping receipts.   

The longer than normal holiday shopping season wraps up amid predictions that sales have not been quite as good as expected.

"We’ve noticed it’s been a little more spread out than usual," Peggy Hayes is the marketing director for the Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi, the largest shopping mall in Michigan,  "Often times, people wait until the last minute…but we’re found it’s been spread out…over the holiday season this year.”

Most Michigan children believe Santa Claus brings them presents for Christmas. 

But children in Charlotte KNOW local firefighters are handling the delivery.  Starting about five o'clock, fire engines will start rolling down local streets, delivering presents.  

The Christmas Kiddies program has been providing needy children with presents in Eaton County for more than a hundred years.   This year, more than 400 children will be receiving Christmas presents.

Tyger Fullerton is the deputy fire chief.   He’s the third generation of his family to be part of the program

The holiday shopping season is expected to wrap up in a big way this weekend in Michigan.

This has been a longer than normal holiday shopping season with five full weekends separating Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

Tom Scott is with the Michigan Retailers Association. He says stores have seen their business rise and fall during the past month. Scott says the unevenness of the holiday shopping season can be blamed in part on its length.

Holiday feasts have increased in both complexity and decadence since their 19th century beginnings.

Bill Loomis of the Detroit News spoke with Cyndy about some historic festive spreads.

11-year-old Noah Hudson-Peralta wants to remember the young boys and girls who lost their lives in the Sandy Hook tragedy. 

He came up with the idea of Gifts For 20 in honor of the twenty children who passed away.

On Saturday, December 22nd, "Sandy Hook Day", Noah encourages everyone to give presents to disadvantaged children by donating to the Toys for Tots drive in their local area.

Listen to our interview with Noah and his father Ryan Hudson-Peralta above. 

The U.S. Coast Guard has loaded 1,300 Christmas trees aboard the ice cutter Mackinaw for delivery to needy families in Chicago.

Captain Dave Truitt of the Christmas Ship committee in Chicago says selling cheap evergreen trees from the northern Michigan woods to families in Chicago was a tradition a century ago.

“People would come down and get telegraphs of what ships were coming. They would look to the horizon and one of them would have a Christmas tree tied to the top. And people would yell and scream and the church bell it would start ringing and it was the beginning of Christmas for the entire community,” Truitt said.

Captain Herman Schuenemann’s ship, the Rouse Simmons, became known as the Christmas tree ship.

“One of the reasons (Captain Schuenemann) was so popular besides being a very good guy, he was a good businessman. He had an amazingly simple sign on his large schooner,” Truitt said, “It said ‘Christmas trees cheap’.”

75-cents was cheap. On land trees sold for a dollar a piece.

This year’s trip marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the original Christmas tree ship. It was last seen above water November 23rd, 1912 before a big snow storm. There are still many evergreens in the ship’s hull at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

Check out the wreckage footage below (narration begins around a minute into the video).

HOLLY, Mich. (AP) - Despite a few hiccups due to some wild weather, Michigan's holiday crops are looking good.

The Detroit Free Press reported yesterday that the state's Christmas tree growers say that while some trees were victims of the weather, it's unlikely to affect consumers.

Pumpkin growers say they're doing well after the drought and heat of the summer.