Calling all Cindy Lou Who's! Are you a holiday nerd in addition to being a romance nerd? Well good, because we're thinking way too deeply about Christmas trees and lumberjacks in this one. Buckle in for a history of the Christmas tree and cross-cultural intersectionality and dating and mating rituals.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Suggestions? Email us at ragingromantics@nopl.org!

Raging Romantics book list (Jackie's 2023 goal is to catch up on this behemoth)

We wish you a warm and comfortable holiday season and a bright new year!

Happy Reading,

Jackie + Jen

Books we mention

• You're a Mean One, Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky
• Kiss Her Once For Me by Allison Cochrun
• In the Event of Love by Courtney Kae
• Season of Love by Helena Greer
• There's Something About Merry by Codi Hall

The lifecycle of the Christmas tree article Jackie recommends! (Moody, 2021)

Sources:

• "10 Reasons Why You Should Be Dating A Lumberjack" (Gentlile, 2015)
• "What Women Want: Lumberjacks and Men in Skirts" (Reardon, 2020)
• "19th Century lumberjacks were kinda crazy" (CDN History Bits blog, 2014)
• "Lumbersexuality and Its Discontents" (Brown, 2014)
• "The End of Men" (Rosin, 2010)
• "8.8% Fortune 500 CEOs are women - the highest of all indices - according to the Women CEOs in America Report 2022" (Pr Newswire, 2022)
• "Are You a "Lumbersexual"?" (Chan, 2014)
• "Christmas tree cultivation" (Wikipedia)
• "The twelve pests of Christmas (trees)" (CABI blog, 2018)
• The biodiversity that is crucial for our food and agriculture is disappearing by the day" (Food and Agriculture Association, 2019)
• "Pests and Diseases" (PennState Extension)
• "Customers Pick and Chop Their Own At the Christmas‐Tree Farms Upstate" (Faber, 1973)
• "History of the Christmas Tree" (Hilt & Fischman, 2007)
• "Where Christmas trees come from" (Meko & Tierney, 2019)
• "The Amazing Growth of the Christmas Tree" ( Lévêque, 2021)
• "Why do we have Christmas trees? The surprising history behind this holiday tradition" (McKeever, 2020)
• National Christmas Tree Association
• "History of Christmas Trees" (NCTA)
• "What is Yule?" (Almanac.com, 2021)
• "The Complicated History of the Christmas Tree" (NYC Christmas Trees, 2021)
• "The curious history of the Christmas tree" (Spaced-out scientist, 2015)
• "The War On Christmas and a partridge in a pear tree" (Durso, 2017)
• "The origin and history of the Christmas tree: from paganism to modern ubiquity" (Puiu, 2021)
• "The Life of a Lumberjack" (Lam, 2016)