Top 10 Tapped Out Holiday Decorations

03. Cauldron

The cauldron has historically been a multifunction homemaking device that was used to cook large meals in, as well as wash clothes and provide large amounts of boiling water for tasks like plucking chickens by scalding them, which would make it a very mundane object with little to recommend it if not for its appearance in Shakespeare's play Macbeth.

The symbolism of the cauldron in Macbeth wasn't really original in the sense that Shakespeare did not invent the Witch's Cauldron, but rather he simply re-popularized a very old legend. We thought you might find it interesting to know just what that legend was and how it became associated with witches and witchcraft!

According to Celtic legend in addition to brewing potions in their cauldrons, witches also used them in support of the army for whatever king it was they served. Remember in Ireland witches originally did not have the evil reputation or image that they ended up taking on in the Middle Ages, and were often simply women able to do magic (possibly simple herbalists but still).

According to the legend that Shakespeare was playing off of, covens of witches would brew a special potion in their cauldron -- one that had to be constantly tended due to its massive power -- and then they would have their helpers bring dead warriors from the battlefield.

The bodies could then be put into the cauldron and, thanks to a combination of the potion and their special skills, be returned to life though such resurrections created warriors who lacked the power of speech, which was how you could tell they had been pulled back from the dead lands.

According to the legend warriors who were resurrected by witchcraft lacked souls -- though they were still fully functional in every other respect, and so could be sent back into battle until they were killed again!

That gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.'

02. Ray Gun

The Ray Gun -- and particularly the giant version that we see in the game -- is a nod to the very golden age of science fiction of the 1950's, though they actually appeared in the genre well before that!

The first example of the large and very powerful weapon is found in the 'Heat-Ray' that was featured in H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds, which was published in 1898.

During the 1920s the weapon made the leap from heat ray to death ray, and by the golden age of the 1950's the weapons had matured to the point that their beams of bright light were not only instantly lethal to any human they happened to hit, but were equally damaging to anything mechanical that they hit - like a space ship!

Considering that the laser was not invented until the 1960's you may be wondering what the source for this potentially saucer-destroying weapon might have been? Well the rumor has it that inventor Nikolai Tesla actually created a directed energy weapon -- or Ray Gun -- that made use of a combination of the forces of electricity and gravity -- but the weapon and its plans were seized by the government shortly before Tesla died.

It turns out though that the so-called Ray Gun Tesla invented was really an early form of Radar -- a type of beam that while not used as a weapon did end up having decidedly critical military and civilian applications later during World War II and beyond.

01. Holiday Tree (Christmas)

The Holiday Tree -- or Christmas tree -- is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer such as fir, pine, or spruce, that is traditionally decorated for and associated with the celebration of the Christmas holidays.

You may be interested to learn that the modern Christmas tree was originally a custom in Germany and Scandinavian countries, and was first introduced to the English -- and thus to America, Canada, and the rest of the old British Empire -- through the influence of George III's German-born queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who introduced the Christmas tree in 1800 at a party she gave for the royal children at the palace.

Popular culture has it that Queen Victoria's consort, Prince Albert was who introduced the tree to Britain, but that clearly was not the case. Though it is fair to say that Albert popularized the Christmas tree outside of the royal family!

Albert and Victoria's first Christmas after being married was a well-covered event, and as it included a number of well-decorated Christmas trees, this coverage in the media introduce the Christmas tree to the Empire.

He also introduced the Dachshund (the Queen had many and bred them), and other Christmas customs from Germany such as collecting and saving ornaments for the trees, and Christmas Eve gift exchanges.

At the time Queen Victoria was the bleeding edge of culture and had sway over fashion and other areas of cultural life, including how to celebrate holidays.

A diary of an precocious American woman who was a member of the gentry in Boston records the family preparations for Christmas only ONE year after Victoria and Albert were married, saying 'we decorated the Christmas tree as we always do this time of year...'

Forgetting for the moment that it could only have been the first time that her family ever did it, since that was when the custom first came to America, you have to love the aristocracy, even when there is no aristocracy to love!