20 • The Beacon January 2 , 2025
Agriculture played a role in many holiday traditions
Hello , Coshocton County ! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and got to enjoy the festivities . The Christmas season can be such a magical time of year with presents and parties , and some of the traditions we just celebrated are rooted in agriculture .
Let ’ s start with one of the oldest Christmas traditions , the Christmas tree . It ’ s said the first recorded use of a Christmas tree was used by the German Lutherans in the 16th century . In the United States , there are 15,000 Christmas tree farms with over 350 million trees growing on those farms .
I am always amazed at the different sizes of trees that are out there when I go with my family to get our tree . It can take as little as four years and as long as 10 years for a Christmas tree to grow and mature into what we see today .
Some of the most popular Christmas trees sold in the U . S . are balsam fir , Douglas fir , Fraser fir , noble fir , Scotch
pine , Virginia pine and white pine . Christmas tree farms provide not only a festive tradition , but also environmental benefits . Christmas tree farms stabilize the soil , protect water supplies , support complex ecosystems and can be recycled once all the decorations come off . Thirty million trees are turned into giftwrapping paper every year .
It wouldn ’ t be Christmas without a Christmas sweater or two , and we wouldn ’ t have sweaters if it weren ’ t for sheep . In the U . S . we have about 88,853 sheep farms or ranches , with Ohio being in the top five states having around 4,133 farms . On average a lamb can produce enough wool for six sweaters . Through shearing the wool off the sheep , cleaning the wool ,
spinning the wool , and knitting or weaving the wool into the fabric , you get to wear a beautiful or ugly Christmas sweater to a party or just around the house .
Now I want to move on to a traditional Christmas Day food , the ham . On average 318 million pounds of ham is consumed during the holidays . The tradition of eating ham during the winter is traced back centuries before Christianity . It is said the Germans started this tradition as they wanted to appease their god of fertility , harvest and boars . While we all know ham comes from the beloved hog , did you know there are around 56,265 hogs sold in the U . S .? That ’ s a lot of ham !
Moving on to a common , fun drink we see
during the holidays , eggnog is something I have never tried before but have always been curious about . This festive drink can be traced back to a medieval British drink called posset that was a combination of milk or cream , wine or beer , sugar , eggs , and spices . This later came to be called eggnog in the 1770s in Colonial America . George Washington even served eggnog at his home in Mount Vernon during the Christmas holidays .
I want to focus on one important ingredient in that festive drink : eggs . The U . S . produces around 99 billion eggs each year . There are around 44,260 farms in the U . S . that specialize in egg production . A laying hen can lay up to one egg per day , so this
equates to around 82 eggs per 100 layers on an average day . No wonder there is always so much eggnog !
It is sometimes hard to imagine all the holiday traditions that are rooted in agriculture , but if we truly take the time to think about it , we can find agriculture all around us during this magical time of year . I encourage all of you to think of something you do during the holidays that is rooted in agriculture .
I hope all of you take some time to reflect on this past year and look positively into 2025 . I am excited to learn more about being your agriculture educator , and I am looking forward to all that 2025 has to offer ! Have a great and safe day and happy New Year !
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