A ritual I can't get behind. They go and cut down/kill a magnificent living thing just for this.

And it happens in DC too.

When my mother's close friend across the street died, they chopped down every single tree on her property before they sold her house, including one towering pine that she loved that had remained when they built the house and a smaller one in her front yard that she had planted herself. Whenever I drive by, it still bothers me.

For a period of time several years ago when the building where I worked was undergoing renovations, our offices were relocated into the building facing the tree. It was a crazy mobbed scene out there every single day.