Real or Plastic?

Now fellas, get your mind out of the gutter, we are talking about Christmas trees here.

For a few years there the artificial or plastic tree was all the rage, but now people are rediscovering the joy of a real one. As if there was any doubt on this end. Let us examine the value of a real tree vs. a plastic one.

We have always been a fan of the real Christmas tree, and not because we are traditionalists or anything like that. This is a renewable resource, and a subject we know quite a bit about. My uncle had a Christmas tree farm for many years. And the one thing I learned was this.

When one is cut down, another is planted in its place the very next spring , ie. renewable resource. They mature in as little as 8 years. And, land used for this purpose is normally not good agricultural land, so no real food is lost from this practice.

I have to tell you a bit of a bias for the smell of balsam and spruce at this time of year, and with an artificial tree you get none of that.

It is sterile, and just plain boring, probably made out of recycled toilet seats we figure, or recycled septic tank pipes.

When we are done we trim the branches off and put it on our wood compost pile. Some people take them to their city park and have them chipped up and return them to the park flower gardens as mulch. Either way it is returned to the soil from which it came and ends up renewing that soil. No toxins are put into the air either.

You don’t need to burn it to get rid of it, just let nature take care of the process naturally.

This is also an event too, taking the kids with saw in hand and finding just the right one that they can brag about cutting down their own Christmas tree, that is something to talk about. Send that around the facebook page, always a big hit.

We even like making our own wreaths around here too, from natural materials. You might not have as much woods around you as you might need, so you can just trim from down the back roads. It does not hurt the trees trimming them a bit either, they bush out nicely and regrow all that material.

Again, nothing is ever wasted, just return it to the soil to renew.

An awesome renewable resource if done properly. For the industrious here is another tip, we have used sun powered Christmas lights on the tree the past few years. You know, the ones meant for outside.

What we do is put the panel outside to gather light energy, and run the line of lights through the wall to the tree.