Dennis's blog

The story of the Goat Tree is quite a remarkable one. The use of goats as Christmas tree ornaments has a long and storied past. The goat was actually the second 4-legged animal domesticated by early man, the first being the humphrey. As long ago as 4000 BC, the Mesopotamians were milking goats. As early as 3000 BC, they were training their goats to go up in a tree at Christmas time. At first the community standard was like one or two goats in a tree. But then due to man's natural tendency to compete, this began to increase. In the Old Testament in the Book of Numbers, there is mention of one Christmas tree with like 17 goats in it.

So anyway, this habit of the Goat Tree continued along for many centuries. The value of the goat became even more important when the idea of the Goat Olympics was created around 1000 BC. The various competitions were like goat throwing, goat chasing, goat stacking and like that. After the closing ceremonies all the people would stay over for a giant goat roast.

The main reason there is so little Goat fun now is that people moved indoors in the winter and started to bring their Christmas tree inside with them. They tried a bit with the Goat Tree but it just didn't work out as well inside. And then when the Goat Tree was phased out, the Goat Olympics became less popular and anyway the meat is real tough and stringy. Every now and then you'll still see an occasional Goat Christmas tree, but it's mostly just done for ceremony and to help celebrate the past.

That's the story.

Ahhh, excellent points all! Even the word itself demonstrates the argument. Meringue is derived from the French word "meringue" which means "to fluff," as in "the maid meringued up the down comforter." The original word of course is from the Latin, "heringue," which means to speak loudly and incessantly in trying to get someone to do something. As in, "Mom kept heringueing me to clean my room." Towards the 5th century A.D. the Romans, knowing they were nearing the end of their civilization as they knew it, subtley changed the use of this word. Where as "heringuer" used to mean one who "herigues," which in fact it still did, now (late 5th century), however, it could also be used to describe a large garage-like structure for storing an airplane. In turn, one who actually stored the airplane in the "heringuer" would be referred to as a "heringuerer." So this, once again, proves the point about avoiding whipped cream like the plague. Look what happened to all those Europeans.

This brief essay will explain how the statement "Meringue is a Horrible Abomination, and Should be Excluded from All Meals, Especially Desserts" can be derived from Kant's categorical imperative, "A person must be treated as an end in himself, never only as a means."

The importance of the categorical imperative is hardly debatable, but its truth is amply demonstrated by saying that it is imperative that the categorical imperative is hardly debated categorically, but rather is categorically debated hardly by the imperative.

The argument then moves to an elaboration: Treating a person as an end in himself means treating a person in a way that respects their individual moral worth, i.e., offering them pleasing and delicious meals. A good meal respects an individual's equal moral worth. In contrast, treating a person as a means means serving them something gross. It is undisputable (and therefore undisputably true, or True) and meringue ruins any meal, and is gross.

There are three elements to the Truth that meringue is gross (gross meaning, in this case, horrible and disgusting). First, we must proceed from the epistomological idea that we know (or Know) what we know because we are (or Are) sentient beings, as in, we can taste, and therefore can distinguish between good tastes and bad tastes. Hence we expand the Cartesian declaration:" I [taste], therefore I am [able to tell that this pie tastes like crap because of all the meringue]." Second, meringue has a weird, airy texture and adds nothing to the dish. Third, meringue is not to be trusted.

Because meringue is gross, serving meringue to a person (even an enemy, or an enemy combatant) is the equivalent of treating a person as a means, not an end in himself. This reasoning leads to the inescapable conclusion that meringue is a horrible abomination, and should be excluded from all meals, especially desserts.

We hope that everyone had as good a time over the holidays as we did! Watching the twins roll around, playing with Madison, doing Christmas Promise, making soppapilla, playing video games, making caramel apples, eating the blueberry french toast on Christmas morning, eating See's, watching movies, reading, eating Thai food (the New Sampan!) and just being with family. We loved it all.

In the spirit of the holidays, then, we offer this Christmas Tree Full of Goats, which is seen as good luck in many Moroccan villages. It's even luckier if the goats poop on your dinner jacket, and the luckiest of all if you pet a baby goat and it doesn't fall out of the tree. So, what I'm trying to say is: We're really looking forward to the next all-family hang-out!