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.