This may sound silly but I got into a discussion about Christmas decorations with a couple of Millennials. They disagreed with me about the definition of tinsel versus garland. What I call garland they call tinsel. To me it was quite simple growing up. Tinsel, which we also called icicles, consisted of narrow strips of sparkling silver coloured plastic that you put onto the tree after it had been decorated with all the other stuff, lights, ornaments and garland, which was what we called the long strands of colourful flimsy plastic material on a thread that wound around and around the tree. Tinsel was invented in Germany in 1610 and was made of shredded silver. In the 1960’s tinsel began being made out of plastic. The word tinsel comes from a French word meaning sparkle. The definition of garland is actually a wreath of flowers, leaves or other material worn for ornament purposes or hung on something as a decoration. However, nowadays I see how garlands and tinsel can be confused for each other because used at Christmas time wound around trees or stair railings or over doorways can be strands of garland or tinsel, both being attached to a thread or string. If you want what I called tinsel as a kid you want “silver icicle tinsel”. SO the Millennials were right, and so was I. Isn’t it great when everybody wins?

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.