beeplet's Journal: The Boston annual festive holiday branch

Just thinking, since the Boston Christmas tree is getting so much publicity these days, I find it sad that the news stories hardly ever mention the origin of the tree. The Boston Christmas tree is an annual gift from Nova Scotia as a thank-you for the help sent after the Halifax explosion. (On December 6, 1917, two ships - one full of munitions - collided in the Halifax harbour. The resulting explosion levelled most of the downtown.)

By unfortunate coincidence, December 6 is also the anniverisary of the Montreal massacre, when 14 women were killed at the Ecole Polytechnique. (In addition, one man who witnessed it later committed suicide over guilt about not being able to intervene.) I have a pin that commemorates it, but since I can never actually find it on Dec. 6 (it usually resurfaces sometime in January...) this journal entry will have to do.

On the upside, at least one can feel thankful for being from a place where that's the worst violence to happen in many years...