Washington, DC - Looking for an attention-getting idea when decorating your Christmas tree this year?  How about festooning that conifer with live birds. 

The Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC] says the suggestion was first made in an article that appeared in the 1895 Christmas time edition of the Western Journal of Education.  According to the article: "Live canaries or mocking-birds, in small cages, are very pretty hung in trees or suspended about the room.  Stuffed birds can also be perched in trees, and a white dove or a larger bird, with wings spread, can be suspended over a tree with very pretty effect."