Oh Christmas Tree
I’m dreaming of a Green Christmas 1.
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Oh Christmas Tree
Hey, all, and welcome to another episode of Make-It Green Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for an Earth Friendly Life. Now that Thanksgiving is finally over, I can start talking about Christmas. Americans are particular about Christmas traditions, and we do them in a big way. So here goes a series about making your holiday season a bit greener.
#Humming Oh Tannenbaum* Searching for that perfect Christmas tree; not too short, not too fat, not too tall to fit your ceiling, tall enough not to be dwarfed by it. Then those helpful staff at the nursery or grocery store parking lot help strap the shedding, virulently disagreeable tree to the top of you little car — the tree, of course, outstretching your car by a good foot of ornery needles. Not to mention the drive.
Then you have to haul it all the way inside the house, wrangle it erect, and then string the whole thing with lights. By the end of this saga, your children are thoroughly diverted, and your hands look as though you’ve been through the Spanish Inquisition’s Pine Needle Torture.
Why Christmas Trees?
Why, oh why do we do this to ourselves? Truly Herculean people who call themselves parents do it for their kids. Those of us who are single and living alone do it for the smell. Those who are retired and have an empty nest … well, they don’t do it at all, do they?
Perhaps they are the smart ones. Perhaps they thought to themselves, “Hey! The kids are grown now, and have their own trees. Why don’t we save a tree from being cut down and play canasta instead?” This goes great with our New Year’s resolution (that we vaguely remember after eleven months) to spend less money and cut down fewer trees (that nasty lumber-jacking habit can be hard to break).
Let’s face it, though. How many of us can be happy without a Christmas tree on Christmas? Unless we all start raising our children to think the tradition ill-considered and old-fashioned — and this will only work if we all do it at the same time, lest our kids form jealous designs on other families’ traditions — there must be a tree. So, you’ve got three options this year for a green Christmas. Because what’s a green Christmas without a green tree? Painting a picture of a tree on the wall seems as empty as a DVD of a fireplace is warm.
Real Trees
First, let’s talk about those lovely-smelling real trees. You feel guilty, right? Depriving the earth of one of her lung cells that clean carbon dioxide from the air and replacing it with fresh oxygen, as trees are wont to do. We have all been much educated about the evils of deforestation.
Christmas trees, however, fall into their own category. They are grown agriculturally, much the same as pumpkins at Halloween and turkeys at Thanksgiving, meaning your patronage is of importance to those who grow and sell cut trees.
They are cut between 8 and 12 years of age, and the fields replanted after the trees are cut. However, many trees are grown with pesticides that damage the ability of the Christmas tree grove to provide habitat, and polluting land and water alike. Be sure to know where your tree comes from.
The benefits of a cut tree are that it won’t take up space in your garage, will cost between 50 and 100 dollars, and will smell good for up to a month with proper watering. Also, they are made of the ultimate biodegradable material — biomass! Many cities also offer programs for recycling real biomass trees.
For example, in San Francisco, you can “rent” a live tree in your house over Christmas and, provided you care for it, a nursery will come pick it up after Christmas and plant it.
Other cities have programs offered by recycling services or the Boy Scouts, to recycle your cut tree as compost. If all else fails and you own a chain saw and a decent yard, you can try to compost it yourself by chopping it into small pieces and throwing it in the compost heap. Dried branches also make good covering for the heap so the flies don’t get in.
Synthetic Trees
For those of you who just can’t bring yourself to cut down another tree — or have a lot of extra storage space — can go for a simulated tree. Just like diamond simulants, fake trees have come a long way.
You can purchase a decent sized, life-like tree for a couple hundred dollars, and save that Christmas tree money and hassle year after year. If you shell out a bit more, they might even string it for you. Of course, these will never pass the grandkids’ smell test, so I recommend a hearty tree-scented candle or fragrance oil to put them off the scent. Or is it on the scent? Eh…
When looking for an artificial tree, be sure to ask what it’s made of. PVC trees may contain lead as a stabilizer, so look for a lead-free or poly-ethylene tree. The downside is most plastics are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource that we also use for energy. The benefit here is of course no dead trees, of which American Christmas tree farmers cut about 30 million each year.
However, if you ever do decide to throw away that hearty metal and plastic tree, there is a very very small hope of it decomposing in the landfill within historical memory. All of the plastics ever made are still in existence today because they degrade so slowly. If you decide to go this route, be sure to leave it to one of the kids in the will. Or sell it on eBay and put the money towards your retirement.
Live Trees
If you are a homeowner, probably the best option is to plant yourself some kind of live Christmas tree, near a window where you family can look at it from the warmth of the house. We go nuts decorating our bushes and shrubs with lights, so why not just move the tree outside? This is a great money saver because you can simultaneously eliminate your yearly tree bill, decorate your yard, and make your neighbors jealous.
Even if you don’t own your home, if you have some access to outdoor space and live in a climate that pines thrive in, you can keep a live tree outside in a bucket on wheels for nine months out of the year. Since Christmas in America is about three months long, this is about how long your tree will have to survive inside in the hot, hot apartment/condo/rental-house.
Not only will the bucket be nice because you can move the tree inside during the holidays, but you can also put it out of sight in the yard or on the deck when you don’t want to see it; you can move it with you to your next domicile; and the pot will limit the size of the tree by confining the roots, so it won’t get so monstrous even if you do manage to keep it alive all those years.
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