Twas the murder before Christmas....
I don't believe in chopping down trees for Christmas. I wear leather and eat hamburgers and steaks and chickens and feed small fishes to my big fishes, but I don't like the tradition of killing a tree for this "its pretty much all about consumption" holiday. I think in general there's too much frivolous spending that goes on this time of year, but it makes me sad that many people think of the tree as a consumable. They have to grow YEARS to be chopped down for one Christmas season. Driving past a Christmas tree lot breaks my heart. I see the poor trees, already killed, but not yet appearing as dead. Just shivering in the cold with their branches wrapped tight, wondering where their roots are. A family finds one and claims it to be perfection and brings it into their home, where they lovingly decorate it and ooh and ahh at it and sit in front of it reveling in its beauty and smell. .....until the very second that the presents are opened. all of a sudden, everyone notices the dropping needles and the same people that couldn't wait to decorate it, are now long gone or busy when the decorations need to come off. This thing of perfection is now a burden and generally, it can't get out of the house fast enough. Sometimes it barely makes it out, it sits on the porch until spring. If you must have a live tree, please respect that life that was taken for you to put your presents under it for the entirety of the time you have it and please recycle it.
or................ how about getting a small potted evergreen and decorating that? after Christmas its easy to undecorate and then you can plant it outside... if you have kids and make them a part of this, and talk about trees and life and preservation. They'll probably remember that experience long after their Christmas toy is broken. If you do that every year, you will have a history of your Christmases to see year after year.
PS: If John and I decorate, we decorate a house plant.
2 comments:
Christmas? What's Christmas? At my house, we always celebrate "Tree Murder Day" this time of year. We'd go out into the forest, dropping lit cigarettes, and find the most beautiful tree we could. The best was finding a mama tree with little baby trees all around it. We would then slowly chop it down with spoons. On the way out of the forest that evening, we would sign tree murdering carols while we maimed as many trees as we could. I asked my father why we hated trees so much once. He looked down on my lovingly and said "Son, it's either us or them"... and then kicked a small spruce.
Man, those were good times.
I prefer to kill trees more indirectly by contributing to global warming (when I drive my van around) and rainforest destruction (from my coffee habit).
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