Ever Green Tree

It so happens I have been in USA around October quite a few times. Few years back while in North Carolina I started hearing about changing colours of the trees. First I wondered how trees could colors, even though I had seen lovely pictures of trees with orange and red leaves, I had not connected them with any change in colors. Then I understood that during the fall season when the trees shed their leaves, just before falling, they change their color. The color ranges between yellow to red with so many different shades in between. At some time you just see lovely reds and yellows around you when you go outside. I was told all the places in Eastern coast from Boston to North Carolina has this change of color. At that time we went to near by mountain ranges to see the thick trees which had changed color enmasse. This lasts for a week or less and then all the leaves start falling.
This time when I was travelling by train to North Carolina from Baltimore, I could see wonderful trees all in different shades of color. In between I could see some dark green trees defiently standing straight . I could make out they were coniferous trees.
This reminded me of a tree we had in our Railway house in Palghat. We had this very tall tree just in front of the entrance of our house in the lawns of our garden. It looked like a pine tree but I knew it was not a pine tree. Then my father in law who was visiting us told me it is called an ever green tree. There this magestic tree stood all the eight or so years of my living there, giving me some sleepless nights when it leaned dangerously(I thought) towards the house. But it was a beauty to behold and gave a special look to our house which stood out amidst the same model houses in our street. (I wonder what happened to that ever green tree now as it is more than 15 years since I visited Palghat ).
Coming back to the present I could see a lot of Christmas Trees which are also a variety of ever green trees. Now I could understand and appreciate the significance of such type of trees being called ever green trees. Within a month or so from now all those colorful trees will be standing leafless and only with sticks as branches. It is entirely a different sight which is equally if not more beautiful to see those seemingly lifeless trees covered with snow flakes in the winter months.
Now something else came to my mind. I was thinking may be this particular tree, or part of tree was used for decoration during the christmas as it must have looked nice to see a tree full of green and full of leaves amidst leafless trees in the winter when christmas is being celeberated and that is why it became a symbol of christmas and came to be known as christmas tree. I remember reading in Da vinci code that December 25th is not the acutal birthday of Christ but since that day was some festival day of Pagan People (those who were following some other religion those times) the day was adapted to suit the newly converted Chrstians. So the christmas tree is significant because of the season in which christmas is celeberated.
Now I really have a new respect for my good old ever green tree of Palghat and would like to go and check on the tree.