Oh, Christmas Tree!

Growing up, my family always had a fake Christmas tree. It always seemed so simple to take the tree out of its box put it together, and when Christmas was over return it to the box until the next year. I never thought twice about fake Christmas trees until last year, the year of our first Christmas tree (the year before we were moving right around Christmas, so we decided not to do a tree). I found out that I was married to a die hard "real-tree" fanatic. When the subject of Christmas trees comes up I immediately receive the list of why real trees are better: They smell better, its funner to go choose a tree, if you want a good looking fake tree you have to pay the price, etc. This year Dan has come up with a new reason why real-trees are better. Believe it or not a tree-hugger should prefer his Christmas tree freshly cut, then manufactured...It's greener to go REAL! If you are interested in his argument, I'll have him explain at the end of the post. But first, what really matters...PICTURES!!!

Here's Dan with this year's version of our Christmas tree tied to the roof of our little Hyundai! We found it at the Home Depot, its a pretty decent tree and we got it for $20, so we were happy! They were nice to tie the tree up in plastic mesh before we left, which made fitting it in our elevator much easier.

Here is our finished product. Not too bad is it! I love Christmastime! Okay, so according to Dan, apparently most fake trees are made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which Dan learned in his Soil Chemistry class has some of the nastiest biproducts during its manufacturing that you can get (its bad for the soil, so of course its bad for people too). Most of that stuff gets gets pumped into the air, which is fine if you are in America, but not if you're in China since 80% or so of fake trees are made there (plus China's air pollution can make it over to us anyway, but that's another story). On average most Americans buy a new fake tree every 6 years or so, which means more gunk is made during production and the old tree sits in the landfill. To make this explanation short, most real trees are grown on tree farms which use marginal land (not good for growing much else) and as we know, plants use up CO2 instead of producing it. Most communities compost trees after the end of the Christmas season adding Organic Carbon to the soil instead of back to the air. That in the end reduces your carbon footprint if you are keeping track. Of course, chemical pesticides and fertilizers are used on tree farms, but for the sake of this argument we'll say that those impacts are neglible. Your best bet for the most environmentally sound Christmas is buying a live tree in a pot and planting it after Christmas, but they're expensive and don't usually look that nice. So next time you think about buying a fake tree, think twice about it! Go Real!