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December 10, 2019 11:21 AM Subscribe
The great Christmas tree debate: Are real or fake firs better for the environment? [The Independent] “For many of us, the first shivers of that festive feeling come as we meander through the pines and firs at the local Christmas tree stall. Yet, while we become evermore conscious of the environmental impact of our spending, the question of whether artificial or real Christmas trees have a lower carbon footprint has become top of the eco-friendly Yuletide agenda. Do we opt for a lifelong plastic tree we can dust off and reuse every year, or do we embrace the urge for that real Christmas tree smell, buying one freshly felled and dumping it in a landfill come January? The obvious answer may be to shirk buying any tree at all – but bah humbug!”
• Boomers have outgrown real Christmas trees [The Washington Post]
• Boomers have outgrown real Christmas trees [The Washington Post]
“According to the federal Census of Agriculture, which used the earliest year for which data are available, Christmas tree production fell nearly 30 percent from 2002 to 2017. National surveys point to the reason: Each year, fewer Americans are putting up trees during the holidays. And those who do are increasingly choosing artificial ones. Aging baby boomers are driving much of this shift, as they opt for the convenience of plastic trees that can be reused year after year. The Agriculture Department’s report best conveys the scope of the challenge facing the natural tree industry. In 2002, farmers harvested close to 21 million trees. By 2017 that figure stood near 15 million. [...] But the biggest factor of all may be demographics: As children move out and parents enter their retirement years, the annual holiday pilgrimage to the tree farm may have less appeal than it once did. Survey data back this up: In 2014, for instance, 44 percent of the buyers ages 30 to 49 put up a real Christmas tree. Among those 65 and older, just 16 percent did the same, while a staggering 81 percent chose an artificial tree.”• Is a plastic Christmas tree more sustainable than a real one? [The Guardian]
“Artificial trees used to be a manky wire frame with a bit of tinsel attached, typically left forgotten in the loft along with their tangled Christmas lights. But modern-day tree technology has leapt forward and uses injection moulding to create realistic sprigs. Even close up, the pricier artificial ones can fool most consumers into thinking they are real. But looks are not everything. With major retailers such as John Lewis reporting that “faux” or artificial trees typically made from plastic are now outselling traditional fresh trees, are the ersatz ones an environmental nightmare? According to the Carbon Trust, it is the manufacture of the plastic, from oil, that creates most – around two-thirds – of their carbon emissions. A further quarter is created by the industrial emissions produced when the tree itself is made. Their carbon footprint is boosted by the trees typically being shipped by container from China before arriving in the shops. Friends of the Earth is advising consumers who have fake trees to keep using them for as long as possible...”• Are Live Christmas Trees Really Fire Hazards? [The New York Times]
“Let’s start with the fire risk. Of the roughly 354,000 home-structure fires that occur in the U.S. each year, about 160 are attributed to Christmas trees, according to the National Fire Protection Association. While the risk is small compared with other culprits (like kitchen fires), it does exist. Those figures include both live and artificial trees, but the NFPA reports that “a disproportionate share of Christmas tree fires involved natural trees,” with live-tree fires outnumbering artificial-tree fires by about three to one and causing about 20 times more injuries. So you can’t dismiss your girlfriend’s anxiety. And you may not want to use your co-op’s holiday display as an example of stellar fire-safety measures, because the New York City Fire Department prohibits live Christmas trees and decorations, like garlands, in common areas of buildings.”• How Christmas Trees Became a Holiday Tradition [TIME]
“Rural English church records from the 15th and 16th centuries indicate that holly and ivy were bought in the winter — hence the British carol “The Holly and the Ivy.” Private houses and streets were also decorated with greenery at this time, according to Judith Flanders’ Christmas: A Biography. Flanders posits that a precursor to the Christmas tree can be seen in the pole that parishes would decorate with holly and ivy, like a winter Maypole; one account describes a storm in London that knocked over a poll that’s described as “for disport of Christmas to the people.” [...] References to Christmas trees in private homes or establishments in North America date back to the late 18th century and early 19th century. Flanders mentions a reference to a pine tree in North Carolina in 1786. In 1805, a school for American Indians run by Moravian missionaries sent students “to fetch a small green tree for Christmas.” Similar examples pop up in the first half of the 19th century in the Midwest and further West, such as the German immigrants in Texas who decorated trees with moss, cotton, pecans, red pepper swags and popcorn. [...] But the image of a decorated Christmas tree with presents underneath has a very specific origin: an engraving of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their children gathering around a Christmas tree, eyeing the presents underneath, published in the Illustrated London News in 1848. The premier women’s magazine in America back then, Godey’s Lady’s Book, reprinted a version of the image a couple of years later as “The Christmas Tree.””
Thanks for the links! The independent was especially useful for listing carbon costs of each, however I’m wary of the false precision offered by such carbon measures.
Truth be told, as things stand right now the massive cost differential means I’ll probably opt for another fake when my current fake bites the dust. In my locale real trees cost about 50% - 80% the cost of mid-tier fakes so if I can make a fake last 7-9 years (and as a cat free person that’s what I’m averaging right now) I’m saving hundreds of dollars.
posted by midmarch snowman at 11:33 AM on December 10, 2019
Truth be told, as things stand right now the massive cost differential means I’ll probably opt for another fake when my current fake bites the dust. In my locale real trees cost about 50% - 80% the cost of mid-tier fakes so if I can make a fake last 7-9 years (and as a cat free person that’s what I’m averaging right now) I’m saving hundreds of dollars.
posted by midmarch snowman at 11:33 AM on December 10, 2019
I admit it. I want a tree with twinkling lights and cheap round plasticky ornaments and plenty of nooks and crannies because I dote on my cats and want to give them something to destroy OTHER THAN my couch and carpeting.
posted by endotoxin at 11:35 AM on December 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by endotoxin at 11:35 AM on December 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
Oh, man, I have opinions about this, and I am surrounded by forest. You want a tree? I can get you a tree. I was half tempted to bring an entire fir or spruce sapling to my friend's place over Thanksgiving. On the bus and ferry, no less.
So, Christmas Tree farms are pretty high impact with the use of pesticides and herbicides especially since it's effectively an unregulated non-food farm product, and at best that "platonic solid cone shape" idealized perfect Christmas tree is really the product of a lot of grooming and pruning to keep it in that shape and doesn't really resemble a real fir tree any more.
The cutting down of the tree itself isn't really the problematic part, any more than cutting down a stalk of corn. If it wasn't for the chemicals and water use a Christmas tree farm is pretty benign compared to, say, a cattle feed lot.
But there's a third option few people seem to consider, which is why not a live tree in a pot, in soil? It's less of a fire hazard, and if you adjust your expectations and start with a smaller tree, a live tree can become a familiar friend every year and can last you for years and years before it's too big to move in and out of doors.
And you can have your Christmas tree all year round. Pines and firs are pretty hardy trees and difficult to kill short of over/under watering.
Will it look like a perfectly conical farmed spruce or fir? No. But it'll have character, and you can get into a little bonsai and gardening action with a live tree in a pot and encourage growth and fullness, or a unique look and shape.
And if you really want your tree up well into January, you can do that. There's no shelf life of "Ok, you need to go before you spontaneously combust." Just keep it watered and healthy and treat it as a fire hazard like a cut tree, with a bit less risk especially with low temp LED Christmas lights.
posted by loquacious at 11:36 AM on December 10, 2019 [34 favorites]
So, Christmas Tree farms are pretty high impact with the use of pesticides and herbicides especially since it's effectively an unregulated non-food farm product, and at best that "platonic solid cone shape" idealized perfect Christmas tree is really the product of a lot of grooming and pruning to keep it in that shape and doesn't really resemble a real fir tree any more.
The cutting down of the tree itself isn't really the problematic part, any more than cutting down a stalk of corn. If it wasn't for the chemicals and water use a Christmas tree farm is pretty benign compared to, say, a cattle feed lot.
But there's a third option few people seem to consider, which is why not a live tree in a pot, in soil? It's less of a fire hazard, and if you adjust your expectations and start with a smaller tree, a live tree can become a familiar friend every year and can last you for years and years before it's too big to move in and out of doors.
And you can have your Christmas tree all year round. Pines and firs are pretty hardy trees and difficult to kill short of over/under watering.
Will it look like a perfectly conical farmed spruce or fir? No. But it'll have character, and you can get into a little bonsai and gardening action with a live tree in a pot and encourage growth and fullness, or a unique look and shape.
And if you really want your tree up well into January, you can do that. There's no shelf life of "Ok, you need to go before you spontaneously combust." Just keep it watered and healthy and treat it as a fire hazard like a cut tree, with a bit less risk especially with low temp LED Christmas lights.
posted by loquacious at 11:36 AM on December 10, 2019 [34 favorites]
Real tree for me, thankyouverymuch. We already store our plastic seasonal wreaths, no room for a tree, plus real trees smell amazing.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:37 AM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:37 AM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
Real tree for me, thankyouverymuch. We already store our plastic seasonal wreaths, no room for a tree, plus real trees smell amazing.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:37 PM on December 10
We have a natural tree and a natural wreath and stepping in our front door smells absolutely incredible. I've never been in a forest that smells as much like trees as my living room does right now.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:41 AM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:37 PM on December 10
We have a natural tree and a natural wreath and stepping in our front door smells absolutely incredible. I've never been in a forest that smells as much like trees as my living room does right now.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:41 AM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
Natural trees are the best part of Christmas.
posted by corb at 11:42 AM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by corb at 11:42 AM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
why not a live tree in a pot, in soil?
I assume the tree will not grow indoors year-round? So this requires having some outside space, which at least for me makes it impossible.
If it actually could live indoors I suppose it would be an interesting "houseplant", although eventually it would just get too big and you'd have to trash it.
If I ever get a tree again, it would be fake --- my parents have been using the same one for decades which seems like a reasonable thing to me (would have been at least 30 real trees vs 1 plastic one).
That said, whether real or fake a tree would just be a giant cat toy in my house, which is one reason we've avoided them.
posted by thefoxgod at 11:47 AM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
I assume the tree will not grow indoors year-round? So this requires having some outside space, which at least for me makes it impossible.
If it actually could live indoors I suppose it would be an interesting "houseplant", although eventually it would just get too big and you'd have to trash it.
If I ever get a tree again, it would be fake --- my parents have been using the same one for decades which seems like a reasonable thing to me (would have been at least 30 real trees vs 1 plastic one).
That said, whether real or fake a tree would just be a giant cat toy in my house, which is one reason we've avoided them.
posted by thefoxgod at 11:47 AM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
After years of hysterical Millennials Are Killing Every Industry! articles, I appreciate that the potential demise of the real Christmas tree industry is being laid on the doorstep of Boomers. Don't take the fall for this one, Millennials!
posted by merriment at 11:51 AM on December 10, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by merriment at 11:51 AM on December 10, 2019 [13 favorites]
We get a real tree, with a root ball, and plant it outside at my parents' or my inlaws'. Sometimes they don't take; sometimes they do.
Fuck plastic trees. (the only exception is those with allergies to them.)
posted by notsnot at 11:51 AM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
Fuck plastic trees. (the only exception is those with allergies to them.)
posted by notsnot at 11:51 AM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
have y'all considered the ecological benefits of just being a quaker
posted by phooky at 11:52 AM on December 10, 2019 [31 favorites]
posted by phooky at 11:52 AM on December 10, 2019 [31 favorites]
I don't think I've ever seen a live tree in anyone's home. Always seemed like a rich people thing to me, for whatever reason.
Plus ain't no way I'm cleaning up needles in addition to cat hair. And vomit, after eating the needles.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:54 AM on December 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
Plus ain't no way I'm cleaning up needles in addition to cat hair. And vomit, after eating the needles.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:54 AM on December 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
year round indoor tree(not deciduous) in a pot is wonderful. they grow real slow cause they are usually tropical, no worries about outgrowing the pot more than every 5 years or more.
i have dozens(or hundreds?) of pines and hemlocks and spruce out the back door if i want one of those.
if you've got a choice of exact tree species, balsam fir is the winner for smell and soft touch.
posted by danjo at 11:56 AM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
i have dozens(or hundreds?) of pines and hemlocks and spruce out the back door if i want one of those.
if you've got a choice of exact tree species, balsam fir is the winner for smell and soft touch.
posted by danjo at 11:56 AM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
Not to yuck anyone's yum, but both "real" and "fake" trees are environmentally a lot worse than just . . . not having a tree. People kill entire trees for this? Just decorate your house. If you want the piney smell you can cut some branches. If you don't live in a place where trees are basically weeds, you could really just have a scented candle or something. And Poinsettias are pretty dang sustainable. The whole thing doesn't even go that far back, it's just a weird Renaissance custom (IIRC enabled by scientific forestry in Germany).
No different than cut flowers.
It very much is, both in cost of transportation and time to mature.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:56 AM on December 10, 2019 [9 favorites]
No different than cut flowers.
It very much is, both in cost of transportation and time to mature.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:56 AM on December 10, 2019 [9 favorites]
How much carbon does "fuck everything about the entire holiday season" use? I vote we do that.
posted by bondcliff at 11:58 AM on December 10, 2019 [20 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 11:58 AM on December 10, 2019 [20 favorites]
Something something negativity meta something something.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:59 AM on December 10, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:59 AM on December 10, 2019 [15 favorites]
People kill entire trees for this?
People grow entire trees for this, too.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 11:59 AM on December 10, 2019 [28 favorites]
People grow entire trees for this, too.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 11:59 AM on December 10, 2019 [28 favorites]
And vomit, after eating the needles.
Sadly, the plastic trees don't help with that. Or possibly I have an unusually dumb cat; neither would surprise me.
Anyway, I'm violently allergic to pine trees, so if you put one up in your living room it means I can't visit you for the entire month of December, which is kinda sad. My wife resents me endlessly for this assault on her Christmas-tree-bearing rights, but I don't really see the big draw of having a tree slowly desiccate and die in front of you every year.
posted by Mayor West at 12:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
Sadly, the plastic trees don't help with that. Or possibly I have an unusually dumb cat; neither would surprise me.
Anyway, I'm violently allergic to pine trees, so if you put one up in your living room it means I can't visit you for the entire month of December, which is kinda sad. My wife resents me endlessly for this assault on her Christmas-tree-bearing rights, but I don't really see the big draw of having a tree slowly desiccate and die in front of you every year.
posted by Mayor West at 12:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
People grow entire trees for this, too.
Fair point. I wonder where the carbon trade off lies. I was sorta thinking the transportation issue offset the positive effects of the tree, but I suppose I should read the article.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:01 PM on December 10, 2019
Fair point. I wonder where the carbon trade off lies. I was sorta thinking the transportation issue offset the positive effects of the tree, but I suppose I should read the article.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:01 PM on December 10, 2019
My family always did a live tree in soil and then planted it. We had the space to do so, though. As an adult I had a albertan dwarf spruce for many years that I kept indoors during the winter and moved outside in the spring. Really gorgeous tree that caps out at about 12' tall, so an excellent tree to keep for holiday purposes. That tree didn't follow to my next home and I've not participated in the tradition since.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 12:04 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by forbiddencabinet at 12:04 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
We use fake trees because needleses and because the new ones (well, the ones from like five years ago) are fuckin' magic is what they are. You set up the bottom bit and plug it in and the whole thing just lights up. Then you plug the middley bit into the bottom bit* and... it just lights up without having to plug anything in. Likewise the top. Also it rotates slowly because why not. You can put pine/fir stank-sticks on the tree that are remarkably similar to the real stank.
*That is in fact what she or he said
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:05 PM on December 10, 2019 [8 favorites]
*That is in fact what she or he said
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:05 PM on December 10, 2019 [8 favorites]
Cut to the numbers, reported by The Independent:
We also decorated our ficus, initially because we just had enough ornaments to spread around, and because it was a bit funny. Then we kept doing it, because it had become a tradition.
I'm not sure, but I think we're at year 7 with our fake tree. Moving to the high desert, we figured that cut trees wouldn't last that long, and it seemed like a waste. I really miss the smell, but I don't miss the needles. The pre-strung lights at the top aren't lighting up this year, so we bought a short string of lights to fill that gap, and now I know we should keep it for another few years, at least.
If I were to do it over (which is more likely to be "when"), I'd be on team Living Tree/ Plant. But co-workers said they get $10 tree-cutting permits and go into the adjacent public forest and pick their own trees, which seems like a not terrible idea.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:06 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
according to The Carbon Trust, who says that a real Christmas tree has a “significantly lower” carbon footprint than an artificial tree, particularly if it is disposed of in a sensible manner.Growing up, we went to tree lots and chopped down a tree each year, which we then put on the curb for waste management to take away and, I dunno, maybe chip them up? When we moved into a big house, had two trees a few times, but one of those times we bought live redwoods, which we planted in our yard.
According to the organisation, a natural two-metre Christmas tree that does not have roots and is disposed of into a landfill after Christmas produces a carbon footprint of around 16kg of CO2.
A two-metre tree that has roots and is properly disposed of after its use — by burning it on a bonfire, planting it or having it chipped — has a carbon footprint of around 3.5kg of CO2, four and a half times less.
On the other hand, a two-metre Christmas tree made from plastic has a carbon footprint measuring at around 40kg of CO2, more than 10 times greater than a properly disposed of real tree.
Therefore, if you have an artificial tree, you would need to use it for at least 10 years in order for its environmental impact to equal that of a responsibly-disposed natural tree.​ That is, if it has been built to last that long.
We also decorated our ficus, initially because we just had enough ornaments to spread around, and because it was a bit funny. Then we kept doing it, because it had become a tradition.
I'm not sure, but I think we're at year 7 with our fake tree. Moving to the high desert, we figured that cut trees wouldn't last that long, and it seemed like a waste. I really miss the smell, but I don't miss the needles. The pre-strung lights at the top aren't lighting up this year, so we bought a short string of lights to fill that gap, and now I know we should keep it for another few years, at least.
If I were to do it over (which is more likely to be "when"), I'd be on team Living Tree/ Plant. But co-workers said they get $10 tree-cutting permits and go into the adjacent public forest and pick their own trees, which seems like a not terrible idea.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:06 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
I mean, “eschewing all material possessions and living as an itinerant monk also saves carbon emissions“ will always be the logical end to all de-rails on all threads about comparing environmental cost any consumer choice so y’all don’t really need to take us there.
posted by midmarch snowman at 12:07 PM on December 10, 2019 [50 favorites]
posted by midmarch snowman at 12:07 PM on December 10, 2019 [50 favorites]
Last time we had a "live" tree years ago we discovered it was infested with giant conifer aphids and that seemed decidedly un-festive to me. Yeah, plastic trees are meh but they do generally come fully equipped with lights. But I now don't do holidays, so yay single me?
posted by maxwelton at 12:10 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 12:10 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
Nthing "live tree in a pot." My sister did it (I never have a tree myself) and it works great. If you have a dolly or hand truck, it’s a breeze.
A few years back I worked at a place that puts up Christmas decor all over the NYC area (a huuuuge operation with ~300K sq ft of warehouse space...they do the decor for most of the department stores in the area as well as things like radio city music hall, Rockefeller Center (except for the big tree. Separate contract.), city hall, corporate venues, etc.) and I got to get hands-on with fake trees in a big way. Never have I gotten so sick in my life. Fake trees are basically an exercise in how much staticky plastic surface area can be packed into the smallest volume. Sooo dusty. They are like giant lungs breathing in every cough and sneeze that happens in a store in New York...for a decade. Handling them is pretty much equivalent to eating every Kleenex from the trash at a pre-school. Vile.
posted by sexyrobot at 12:11 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
A few years back I worked at a place that puts up Christmas decor all over the NYC area (a huuuuge operation with ~300K sq ft of warehouse space...they do the decor for most of the department stores in the area as well as things like radio city music hall, Rockefeller Center (except for the big tree. Separate contract.), city hall, corporate venues, etc.) and I got to get hands-on with fake trees in a big way. Never have I gotten so sick in my life. Fake trees are basically an exercise in how much staticky plastic surface area can be packed into the smallest volume. Sooo dusty. They are like giant lungs breathing in every cough and sneeze that happens in a store in New York...for a decade. Handling them is pretty much equivalent to eating every Kleenex from the trash at a pre-school. Vile.
posted by sexyrobot at 12:11 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
PA is filled with tree farms, so I'm not too worried about the transportation footprint. Plus I walk to the local tree lot and either carry or wheel it back to the house. Then, once the holidays are over, there is a local tree disposal spot. Add all of the CO2 that the tree processed while it was growing and I don't feel too bad.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:18 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:18 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
We have a fake tree. It is our second, unfortunately. The first one was affordable (read, "cheap"), but it fell apart on us. We upgraded to a more expensive tree, which we bought after Christmas for at least half price, and we have been very happy with it for many years.
We used to buy real trees, I love the smell, but that's why we buy fresh wreaths each year. The reason we went fake was more logistics. We were never home for Christmas, we have always gone to my parents' home, so there was always a week or so where we weren't enjoying the potential fire hazard because we weren't home to enjoy or care for it.
I'll be honest, packing it up after New Year's and putting it away in the garage is a great option as well. Never have to worry about the tree getting stuck on the front lawn because I missed the pickup schedule...
We just put up our tree this week. It took me about 15 minutes to lug, unpack and assemble. I don't miss the ritual of picking one out, getting it home and putting it up, which is a process that takes a couple of hours and has a decent chance of knocking some holiday cheer out of you.
posted by Chuffy at 12:18 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
We used to buy real trees, I love the smell, but that's why we buy fresh wreaths each year. The reason we went fake was more logistics. We were never home for Christmas, we have always gone to my parents' home, so there was always a week or so where we weren't enjoying the potential fire hazard because we weren't home to enjoy or care for it.
I'll be honest, packing it up after New Year's and putting it away in the garage is a great option as well. Never have to worry about the tree getting stuck on the front lawn because I missed the pickup schedule...
We just put up our tree this week. It took me about 15 minutes to lug, unpack and assemble. I don't miss the ritual of picking one out, getting it home and putting it up, which is a process that takes a couple of hours and has a decent chance of knocking some holiday cheer out of you.
posted by Chuffy at 12:18 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
I've not been organized enough to have a tree, but am hoping to this year:
1. I am thinking pine boughs because they'll smell nice, have less environmental impact and be easy enough to put a few small decorations on.
2. My grandmother had a miniature artificial tree that lasted forever. I don't know whether it was made of some kind of vintage plastic or a kind of toughened paper, but it was sturdy enough to decorate with small ornaments. (IIRC, the first indoor trees were table-top trees, actually.) Would a tabletop artificial tree be a possible way forward? Less materials, easier to store, might be possible to make one out of something other than plastic?
posted by Frowner at 12:19 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
1. I am thinking pine boughs because they'll smell nice, have less environmental impact and be easy enough to put a few small decorations on.
2. My grandmother had a miniature artificial tree that lasted forever. I don't know whether it was made of some kind of vintage plastic or a kind of toughened paper, but it was sturdy enough to decorate with small ornaments. (IIRC, the first indoor trees were table-top trees, actually.) Would a tabletop artificial tree be a possible way forward? Less materials, easier to store, might be possible to make one out of something other than plastic?
posted by Frowner at 12:19 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
Real tree. I accept no substitutes. Of course, living in NYC, literally all I had to do to get mine this year was go outside, turn left, turn left at the corner, and walk fifty feet to my local Christmas tree stand. Sanitation picks them up for chipping at the end of the season (a few disposal sites, like Tompkins Square, will, I'm told, even give you the resulting mulch-stuff back if you want it). Nothing smells better. I love having the stands in December every few blocks in Manhattan. You're walking along and suddenly you're in a tunnel of green.
posted by praemunire at 12:23 PM on December 10, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 12:23 PM on December 10, 2019 [12 favorites]
According to the organisation, a natural two-metre Christmas tree that does not have roots and is disposed of into a landfill after Christmas produces a carbon footprint of around 16kg of CO2.
A two-metre tree that has roots and is properly disposed of after its use — by burning it on a bonfire, planting it or having it chipped — has a carbon footprint of around 3.5kg of CO2, four and a half times less.
Look, I'm just running on fumes from high school physics here, but I would like to formally declare absolute bullshit on the idea that burning a 2m tall tree (that's about 22kg of wood!) releases just 3.5kg of CO2. (Or that chipping a tree is much better.)
posted by phooky at 12:25 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
A two-metre tree that has roots and is properly disposed of after its use — by burning it on a bonfire, planting it or having it chipped — has a carbon footprint of around 3.5kg of CO2, four and a half times less.
Look, I'm just running on fumes from high school physics here, but I would like to formally declare absolute bullshit on the idea that burning a 2m tall tree (that's about 22kg of wood!) releases just 3.5kg of CO2. (Or that chipping a tree is much better.)
posted by phooky at 12:25 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
We always go cut a tree for Christmas. Going to go do that this weekend. As we cut it a couple weeks before Christmas and always get rid of it by Epiphany, so needles are never a big problem. Especially if we get a Fraser Fir.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:26 PM on December 10, 2019
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:26 PM on December 10, 2019
About a dozen years ago I bought a tiny potted Norfolk pine for $5 and put two ornaments on it a la Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Now it's over 4 feet tall and holds a lot more ornaments. I wish it smelled like a regular tree tho. Ooh! Classy!
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:29 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:29 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
I mean, “eschewing all material possessions and living as an itinerant monk also saves carbon emissions“ will always be the logical end to all de-rails on all threads about comparing environmental cost any consumer choice so y’all don’t really need to take us there.
If you really want to ad absurdium this hoc, you could go walk in to the woods and let a tree branch fall on you.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:31 PM on December 10, 2019 [8 favorites]
If you really want to ad absurdium this hoc, you could go walk in to the woods and let a tree branch fall on you.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:31 PM on December 10, 2019 [8 favorites]
Anyway, I'm all in on team real tree but my aunt used to decorate her dressmaking dummy and I always admired that.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:31 PM on December 10, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by backseatpilot at 12:31 PM on December 10, 2019 [10 favorites]
according to The Carbon Trust, who says that a real Christmas tree has a “significantly lower” carbon footprint than an artificial tree, particularly if it is disposed of in a sensible manner.
New York City has a program whereby if you set your tree out on the curb during a certain time frame, or bring it directly to one of the city parks, the sanitation department will collect it for a program that turns trees into mulch that they turn over to the city parks department to use in the coming year.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:34 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
New York City has a program whereby if you set your tree out on the curb during a certain time frame, or bring it directly to one of the city parks, the sanitation department will collect it for a program that turns trees into mulch that they turn over to the city parks department to use in the coming year.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:34 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
One of my neighbors in England ran a rental tree business.
He owned a small forest of Christmas trees. He would do delivery of the tree and then pick it up from you too. You had the option of getting the exact same tree the following year.
I don't know if that option was covered in any of the links above.
posted by vacapinta at 12:39 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
He owned a small forest of Christmas trees. He would do delivery of the tree and then pick it up from you too. You had the option of getting the exact same tree the following year.
I don't know if that option was covered in any of the links above.
posted by vacapinta at 12:39 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
why not a live tree in a pot, in soil?
I assume the tree will not grow indoors year-round? So this requires having some outside space, which at least for me makes it impossible.
If it actually could live indoors I suppose it would be an interesting "houseplant", although eventually it would just get too big and you'd have to trash it.
Let me introduce you to the Norfolk Island Pine. My parents have had one in their house for 25 years. It's barely gotten any taller and is still quite lovely with white lights on it.
posted by hydropsyche at 12:42 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
I assume the tree will not grow indoors year-round? So this requires having some outside space, which at least for me makes it impossible.
If it actually could live indoors I suppose it would be an interesting "houseplant", although eventually it would just get too big and you'd have to trash it.
Let me introduce you to the Norfolk Island Pine. My parents have had one in their house for 25 years. It's barely gotten any taller and is still quite lovely with white lights on it.
posted by hydropsyche at 12:42 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
Real tree. I accept no substitutes. Of course, living in NYC, literally all I had to do to get mine this year was go outside, turn left, turn left at the corner, and walk fifty feet to my local Christmas tree stand.
As someone who is deeply allergic to pine, this was the absolute worst part of living in NYC for the short amount of time that I did. Going anywhere was a gauntlet of coughing during December. Now that I live in Florida, it's just a small gauntlet of coughing when I go grocery shopping.
I'm definitely Team Fake Tree because I enjoy breathing.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 12:48 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
As someone who is deeply allergic to pine, this was the absolute worst part of living in NYC for the short amount of time that I did. Going anywhere was a gauntlet of coughing during December. Now that I live in Florida, it's just a small gauntlet of coughing when I go grocery shopping.
I'm definitely Team Fake Tree because I enjoy breathing.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 12:48 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
We go to a small family Christmas tree farm that doesn't use pesticides to cut down our tree every year. When it's time for the decorations to come down, we put the tree in the way back of the yard and put bird seed packs in it. When winter is over, my husband puts it through the chopper thing to make mulch out of it, which we spread under the playset (our kids are grown but now the neighbor kids play there). It's been a perfect solution for us! I'll be very sad when my husband and I eventually get too old to handle getting a real tree. I don't know if I'll buy an artificial one. Maybe we'll just get little trees instead.
posted by cooker girl at 12:50 PM on December 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by cooker girl at 12:50 PM on December 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
I grow a bunch of bonchi. They are festive as all-get-out and require no decoration.
eschewing all material possessions and living as an itinerant monk also saves carbon emissions
That's a reductio ad absurdum. Christmas trees are objectively lower on the necessity hierarchy than like, food and shelter. Is it worse than throwing out your TV and getting a new one every year? Definitely not. Here in the Mid-Atlantic, tree farms are probably not that environmentally harmful, if at all. Anywhere in the US West of the Mississippi, I'm a little more skeptical. Is it worse for people in e.g. Las Vegas to have a real or fake tree every year than just having no tree? Probably.
Is it a choice, one that many people make with little consideration other than preference, even people who otherwise think of themselves as environmentally friendly or irreligious? I think that's sort of the point under discussion.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:51 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
eschewing all material possessions and living as an itinerant monk also saves carbon emissions
That's a reductio ad absurdum. Christmas trees are objectively lower on the necessity hierarchy than like, food and shelter. Is it worse than throwing out your TV and getting a new one every year? Definitely not. Here in the Mid-Atlantic, tree farms are probably not that environmentally harmful, if at all. Anywhere in the US West of the Mississippi, I'm a little more skeptical. Is it worse for people in e.g. Las Vegas to have a real or fake tree every year than just having no tree? Probably.
Is it a choice, one that many people make with little consideration other than preference, even people who otherwise think of themselves as environmentally friendly or irreligious? I think that's sort of the point under discussion.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:51 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
We still have our Halloween decorations up. And there's a spider eating a snowman still up from last Christmas. If we had a fake tree, we'd have it up all year. So... OK, maybe we'll go fake.
posted by pracowity at 12:53 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 12:53 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
If we require a Cat Tax and a Dog Tax for certain threads, shouldn't this thread require a Tree Tax?
posted by madajb at 12:53 PM on December 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by madajb at 12:53 PM on December 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
I assume the tree will not grow indoors year-round? So this requires having some outside space, which at least for me makes it impossible.
There is a company around here that delivers potted trees beginning just after Thanksgiving and picks them up again in January.
So you basically rent it for the month.
Not sure if this is available everywhere, since I basically live in the Christmas tree capital of the country, but it might be worth searching for.
Of course, if you don't live anywhere near Christmas trees, the carbon emissions of delivering and picking up a heavy tree every year are probably way worse than either a cut tree or a plastic.
posted by madajb at 12:59 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
There is a company around here that delivers potted trees beginning just after Thanksgiving and picks them up again in January.
So you basically rent it for the month.
Not sure if this is available everywhere, since I basically live in the Christmas tree capital of the country, but it might be worth searching for.
Of course, if you don't live anywhere near Christmas trees, the carbon emissions of delivering and picking up a heavy tree every year are probably way worse than either a cut tree or a plastic.
posted by madajb at 12:59 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
Given the framing of the post, stating your preference on a real vs. fake tree is a bit off topic if you do not care to discuss the environmental impact of either.
If you don't want to examine your Christmas tradition with this in mind, that's perfectly okay, but maybe this thread is going to feel far too personal.
posted by agregoli at 1:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
If you don't want to examine your Christmas tradition with this in mind, that's perfectly okay, but maybe this thread is going to feel far too personal.
posted by agregoli at 1:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
I live in one of the biggest Christmas tree growing regions in the country, and they are ripping out Christmas tree farms left and right to plant hazelnuts which are massively more profitable.
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
This headline is like the quantum superposition of Betteridge's law.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by aspersioncast at 1:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
backseatpilot: "If you really want to ad absurdium this hoc, you could go walk in to the woods and let a tree branch fall on you."
But then you would hear it.
posted by chavenet at 1:08 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
But then you would hear it.
posted by chavenet at 1:08 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
I've got a terrible fake tree that I got for free from a former employer that was getting rid of it. It sheds worse than any real tree I've encountered, so I'm not sure I want to put it up this year.
... wait, can I get a hazelnut tree to hang ornaments on and harvest Nutella from?
posted by asperity at 1:11 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
... wait, can I get a hazelnut tree to hang ornaments on and harvest Nutella from?
posted by asperity at 1:11 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
grew up team live tree (not in a pot) but now I am saving all the money on team no tree!!! along with team not-celebrating xmas at all, I'm saving loads!!
posted by supermedusa at 1:19 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 1:19 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
While only tangentially related to the topic at hand, I feel this is the right place tell Metafilter about The Christmas Tree Ship, a musical being produced at this very moment in Shipshewana, Indiana. Nominally based on a true story, the running joke in the show is the villain repeatedly calls Christmas trees a health hazard and a fad that will soon go away.
I’m not going to lie and tell you it was good but I will say it’s really something and if you’ve never seen an Amish-themed musical before, you really are missing out.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 1:19 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
I’m not going to lie and tell you it was good but I will say it’s really something and if you’ve never seen an Amish-themed musical before, you really are missing out.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 1:19 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
Look, I'm just running on fumes from high school physics here, but I would like to formally declare absolute bullshit on the idea that burning a 2m tall tree (that's about 22kg of wood!) releases just 3.5kg of CO2. (Or that chipping a tree is much better.)
You are not counting the carbon the tree has already absorbed from the atmosphere in order to get to that size. Basically, anything you release by burning had to come from somewhere. Bear in mind that trees are basically never taken from established woodland - they're taken from Christmas tree farms, which for all their faults are considerably more sustainable than the processes used to produce a plastic tree.
posted by Acheman at 1:21 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
You are not counting the carbon the tree has already absorbed from the atmosphere in order to get to that size. Basically, anything you release by burning had to come from somewhere. Bear in mind that trees are basically never taken from established woodland - they're taken from Christmas tree farms, which for all their faults are considerably more sustainable than the processes used to produce a plastic tree.
posted by Acheman at 1:21 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
Given the framing of the post, stating your preference on a real vs. fake tree is a bit off topic if you do not care to discuss the environmental impact of either.
That's a good point and I admittedly contributed to the derail.
Here's an on topic question -- for those of us, who like myself or Mayor West, are violently allergic to pine -- what would be some Eco-friendly Christmas decorating suggestions? Particularly if one has ornaments of sentimental value that one wants to display? Maybe there is a better way to do this once my current fake tree dies, but a real tree will never be the correct answer for me.
I get that a lot of people enjoy not celebrating the holidays, but I actually get a lot emotionally out of decorating and I'd like to be able to do that in a way that is sustainable for my own breathing and the earth.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 1:21 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
That's a good point and I admittedly contributed to the derail.
Here's an on topic question -- for those of us, who like myself or Mayor West, are violently allergic to pine -- what would be some Eco-friendly Christmas decorating suggestions? Particularly if one has ornaments of sentimental value that one wants to display? Maybe there is a better way to do this once my current fake tree dies, but a real tree will never be the correct answer for me.
I get that a lot of people enjoy not celebrating the holidays, but I actually get a lot emotionally out of decorating and I'd like to be able to do that in a way that is sustainable for my own breathing and the earth.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 1:21 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
I have a plastic cactus with fiber optic spines that sparkle with changing color. My holiday is very festive, thank you.
posted by acrasis at 1:26 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by acrasis at 1:26 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
I converted to fake trees once I realized I could get them in all blingy colors and leave them up all year long a la Carrie Fisher.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:33 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:33 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
I don't think I've ever seen a live tree in anyone's home. Always seemed like a rich people thing to me, for whatever reason.
This is funny to me because I spent my formative adult years in New York where you can't walk 5 blocks this time of year without coming across someone selling cut trees on the street. Lower/middle class New Yorkers don't have storage space for a giant artificial Christmas tree and the 35 bucks a real tree costs is fairly doable.
posted by Automocar at 1:42 PM on December 10, 2019 [13 favorites]
This is funny to me because I spent my formative adult years in New York where you can't walk 5 blocks this time of year without coming across someone selling cut trees on the street. Lower/middle class New Yorkers don't have storage space for a giant artificial Christmas tree and the 35 bucks a real tree costs is fairly doable.
posted by Automocar at 1:42 PM on December 10, 2019 [13 favorites]
I've got a single fake tree and being able to just... plug it in and not fuck with the lights? A+. (My cats also gleefully climb it, so all our ornaments must be non-breakable. But hey, it seems to make them happy.) Driving out to a farm to cut down down the tree was a cherished childhood tradition when we lived in Virginia, but in Georgia (and now Texas) there's no damn fir species that grows well locally, and the carbon benefits of growing the tree itself seem like not enough to justify the footprint of shipping it. We've had the plastic one three or four years now and fully intend to use it until it's well past broken--we bought a good-quality, solid one on the first run, and expect it to last another ten years or so. It cost a significant chunk of my paycheck, so we've got the incentive to treat it well and make it last as long as possible.
We don't travel for Christmas, and it's basically the only decoration anyone in my household has any energy to do, and eschewing it entirely feels.... sad. Sadder than I want to be. I'm pretty scroogey, but putting up the ornaments and collecting them over the year so that each year we as a household go over our history together and laugh and joke about the ornaments is a really cherished family tradition. Sustainability is important, but so is joy, especially when shit is rough.
Bread and roses, folks. If a Christmas tree isn't your rose of choice, that's fine... but maybe don't shame other people for pausing to sniff theirs.
posted by sciatrix at 1:48 PM on December 10, 2019 [14 favorites]
We don't travel for Christmas, and it's basically the only decoration anyone in my household has any energy to do, and eschewing it entirely feels.... sad. Sadder than I want to be. I'm pretty scroogey, but putting up the ornaments and collecting them over the year so that each year we as a household go over our history together and laugh and joke about the ornaments is a really cherished family tradition. Sustainability is important, but so is joy, especially when shit is rough.
Bread and roses, folks. If a Christmas tree isn't your rose of choice, that's fine... but maybe don't shame other people for pausing to sniff theirs.
posted by sciatrix at 1:48 PM on December 10, 2019 [14 favorites]
I'm in my 30s, and for the last three years I have bought a real tree for my apartment in early December because my parents no longer bother with real ones and it bums me out to have a Christmas with no actual tree.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:48 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:48 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
I would like to formally declare absolute bullshit on the idea that burning a 2m tall tree (that's about 22kg of wood!) releases just 3.5kg of CO2. (Or that chipping a tree is much better.)
Presumably they aren't counting the carbon in the tree itself, because that's a net-zero thing: the tree captures carbon as it grows, then releases that carbon when it's burned (or decomposes, under most conditions). What matters is the fossil carbon that's released from deep geologic storage into the biosphere. And 3.5kg seems about right, for tree fertilizer, cutting the tree down, transporting it home, etc.
This is basically the same calculation that you make when trying to figure out the carbon footprint of heating with wood or some other biomass. It's not so much the carbon that's released from the fuel, if that fuel was made from atmospheric carbon in the first place, it's a question of how much fossil carbon was released to manufacture, process, and transport that fuel from where it grew to where it's consumed. Hence the calculus is very different in various places.
Someone in a rural area who lives right next to a tree farm and only has to drive a mile or two out of their way to pick up a tree on the way home is going to have a different carbon impact from someone who buys a tree off a lot that was hauled from hundreds of miles away. I also suspect that the larger a tree is, the higher the fossil-carbon impact, because there's more fertilizer usage over the life of the tree, but I suspect that's minimal compared to transportation energy usage. (That's a guess, I'm not sure how much fertilizer tree farms typically use—certainly the ones I grew up near didn't appear to use much.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:52 PM on December 10, 2019 [8 favorites]
Presumably they aren't counting the carbon in the tree itself, because that's a net-zero thing: the tree captures carbon as it grows, then releases that carbon when it's burned (or decomposes, under most conditions). What matters is the fossil carbon that's released from deep geologic storage into the biosphere. And 3.5kg seems about right, for tree fertilizer, cutting the tree down, transporting it home, etc.
This is basically the same calculation that you make when trying to figure out the carbon footprint of heating with wood or some other biomass. It's not so much the carbon that's released from the fuel, if that fuel was made from atmospheric carbon in the first place, it's a question of how much fossil carbon was released to manufacture, process, and transport that fuel from where it grew to where it's consumed. Hence the calculus is very different in various places.
Someone in a rural area who lives right next to a tree farm and only has to drive a mile or two out of their way to pick up a tree on the way home is going to have a different carbon impact from someone who buys a tree off a lot that was hauled from hundreds of miles away. I also suspect that the larger a tree is, the higher the fossil-carbon impact, because there's more fertilizer usage over the life of the tree, but I suspect that's minimal compared to transportation energy usage. (That's a guess, I'm not sure how much fertilizer tree farms typically use—certainly the ones I grew up near didn't appear to use much.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:52 PM on December 10, 2019 [8 favorites]
I just went and gave my local USFS office $5 and drove into the woods and picked one out this morning. I feel fortunate.
posted by Grandysaur at 1:56 PM on December 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by Grandysaur at 1:56 PM on December 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
I used to be team Norfolk Pine (we used novelty earrings as ornaments and would decorate it differently year round, like a concrete goose), but then my Norfolk pine died. We technically have a fake charlie brown branded tree that we got from my sister-in-law, but in reality we don't really decorate for Christmas anymore.
I should get another Norfolk pine.
posted by dinty_moore at 1:58 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
I should get another Norfolk pine.
posted by dinty_moore at 1:58 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
Actually buying a live tree still seems like an odd rip-off to me (even though I've done it many times), due to a family tradition during my childhood of pilfering a suitable-sized fir tree from behind a local untended cemetery. Did no one else's dad drive them about the countryside looking for unprotected woodlands?
posted by frobozz at 2:04 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by frobozz at 2:04 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
We’ve used the same fake tree for 17 years, and it will probably last the rest Of our lives. I don’t understand the 10 year measure. Ours is not some extra special tree from some bespoke whatever, it came from a chain hardware store. All it takes is proper storage.
As to real trees, we had those too for many years, and while I love them, they are undeniably more work and hassle.
I didn’t see a mention in The Independent about all the real trees that go unsold or that die or become unsellable along the way. There must be a significant loss ratio between trees planted to trees sold, and other stats along the way. I see lots full of unsold trees on Christmas Eve.
posted by Muddler at 2:06 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
As to real trees, we had those too for many years, and while I love them, they are undeniably more work and hassle.
I didn’t see a mention in The Independent about all the real trees that go unsold or that die or become unsellable along the way. There must be a significant loss ratio between trees planted to trees sold, and other stats along the way. I see lots full of unsold trees on Christmas Eve.
posted by Muddler at 2:06 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
If you don't live in a place where trees are basically weeds
The low-cost version is to use a kind of tree that grows like a weed where you are, and be willing to have a not-perfectly-shaped one. PNW highway verges through the forests grow quite a lot of trees that are at least as shapely as the ones my (thrifty, homegrown) families have always had. They get brushcut or chain-flailed down when they're big enough to be driving risks. I wonder what it would take to have a school-fundraiser week cutting them from the safer verges every year. Have never pulled over to down one myself, though I have trimmed and made off with a windfall that was leaning into a road.
I like the wall-mounted triangles of fake garland, or real garland, or washi tape, or just lights or just ornaments.
posted by clew at 2:06 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
The low-cost version is to use a kind of tree that grows like a weed where you are, and be willing to have a not-perfectly-shaped one. PNW highway verges through the forests grow quite a lot of trees that are at least as shapely as the ones my (thrifty, homegrown) families have always had. They get brushcut or chain-flailed down when they're big enough to be driving risks. I wonder what it would take to have a school-fundraiser week cutting them from the safer verges every year. Have never pulled over to down one myself, though I have trimmed and made off with a windfall that was leaning into a road.
I like the wall-mounted triangles of fake garland, or real garland, or washi tape, or just lights or just ornaments.
posted by clew at 2:06 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
I have an ancient artificial tree that is still just fine when draped in a gajillion LED lights and all the sparklies.
Anecdotes from my summer working on a Christmas tree farm in northeast Iowa.
+ This was a small, locally-owned farm that didn't sell to grocery stores and the like - just direct to customers.
+ The trees don't grow in nice cone shapes, so we hacked them into nice cone shapes with machetes. Sharpened the blades every day - once at lunch, once at the end of the day. We wore huge leg guards on the machete-side, and there were no hotshots who ditched them after the first day because it turns out we all like our kneecaps in one piece.
+ Other gear: safety goggles (sometimes ditched as temps rose), steel-toed boots, leather gloves, hats, long-sleeved shirts, jeans. Miserable.
+ Ad-hoc gear: old heavy sweatsocks with finger-holes cut in them for the machete-arm, for extra protection from the needles you're raking your arm down endlessly. Maybe there was a better version they could have bought for us but LOL. I developed a allergy to the sap and if I brush against an evergreen now I get hives.
+ Started early in the morning, when there was still a lot of dew on the trees. Every downward slash of the machete was answered by an upward arc of dew. We were soaked in minutes. This was summer in Iowa, which is pretty humid, so we never really dried out until late afternoon. Also, fuck mosquitoes.
+ The crew was all college guys, except for the widowed owner of the place, Helen, who'd join us sometimes for an hour. She was about 75 and still out there shapin' trees. We got to talking food over lunch and she gave me her recipe for spaghetti sauce, which is in my recipe box right now. One of the guys had been a minor league pitcher and spent his lunch hours flinging rocks at distant fenceposts, which he hit with amazing regularity.
+ At the end of the summer, we did two things that still seem crazy: we painted the trees and burned all the dead trees in a bonfire.
+ Painting the trees: we sprayed the trees with a dilute mixture of green latex paint. One guy driving the tractor, two wielding spray wands from makeshift seats over the wheels. I know - bonkers.
+ Burning the trees: all summer, we culled dead or dying trees and collected them in a sandy depression at the edge of the property. By season's end, there were SO MANY. Like a pile eight feet tall, fifteen feet wide, and fifty feet long. They were completely desiccated from baking in the sun all summer. I barely have words to describe what it was like, watching the flames race through the pile with demonic speed, feeling the world-splitting heat, hearing the roar and crackle and hiss. Yes, we notified the FD, who told us what day we should to this, but it was nuts and stupid and only a group of idiot college guys would do this, and it scared the shit out of even us.
+ Helen asked if I wanted to come back to work for the holidays, but I declined.
That was a long summer, but still way better than the month of telemarketing for MBNA America I did the next summer.
posted by Caxton1476 at 2:08 PM on December 10, 2019 [26 favorites]
Anecdotes from my summer working on a Christmas tree farm in northeast Iowa.
+ This was a small, locally-owned farm that didn't sell to grocery stores and the like - just direct to customers.
+ The trees don't grow in nice cone shapes, so we hacked them into nice cone shapes with machetes. Sharpened the blades every day - once at lunch, once at the end of the day. We wore huge leg guards on the machete-side, and there were no hotshots who ditched them after the first day because it turns out we all like our kneecaps in one piece.
+ Other gear: safety goggles (sometimes ditched as temps rose), steel-toed boots, leather gloves, hats, long-sleeved shirts, jeans. Miserable.
+ Ad-hoc gear: old heavy sweatsocks with finger-holes cut in them for the machete-arm, for extra protection from the needles you're raking your arm down endlessly. Maybe there was a better version they could have bought for us but LOL. I developed a allergy to the sap and if I brush against an evergreen now I get hives.
+ Started early in the morning, when there was still a lot of dew on the trees. Every downward slash of the machete was answered by an upward arc of dew. We were soaked in minutes. This was summer in Iowa, which is pretty humid, so we never really dried out until late afternoon. Also, fuck mosquitoes.
+ The crew was all college guys, except for the widowed owner of the place, Helen, who'd join us sometimes for an hour. She was about 75 and still out there shapin' trees. We got to talking food over lunch and she gave me her recipe for spaghetti sauce, which is in my recipe box right now. One of the guys had been a minor league pitcher and spent his lunch hours flinging rocks at distant fenceposts, which he hit with amazing regularity.
+ At the end of the summer, we did two things that still seem crazy: we painted the trees and burned all the dead trees in a bonfire.
+ Painting the trees: we sprayed the trees with a dilute mixture of green latex paint. One guy driving the tractor, two wielding spray wands from makeshift seats over the wheels. I know - bonkers.
+ Burning the trees: all summer, we culled dead or dying trees and collected them in a sandy depression at the edge of the property. By season's end, there were SO MANY. Like a pile eight feet tall, fifteen feet wide, and fifty feet long. They were completely desiccated from baking in the sun all summer. I barely have words to describe what it was like, watching the flames race through the pile with demonic speed, feeling the world-splitting heat, hearing the roar and crackle and hiss. Yes, we notified the FD, who told us what day we should to this, but it was nuts and stupid and only a group of idiot college guys would do this, and it scared the shit out of even us.
+ Helen asked if I wanted to come back to work for the holidays, but I declined.
That was a long summer, but still way better than the month of telemarketing for MBNA America I did the next summer.
posted by Caxton1476 at 2:08 PM on December 10, 2019 [26 favorites]
I never had a real tree growing up, so I was excited to get my first one as an adult. But sitting in my house watching a whole tree slowly die for the sake of my "holiday spirit" was far too upsetting for me. I don't like fake trees, so we have a little tree made out of wire, wrapped in red and white yarn, that we decorate with our ornaments every year. I love the heck out of our tree, and look forward to putting it up every year.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 2:10 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by WalkerWestridge at 2:10 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
If you really want to ad absurdium this hoc, you could go walk in to the woods and let a tree branch fall on you.
Serenity now!
posted by Fizz at 2:13 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
Serenity now!
posted by Fizz at 2:13 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
I had a country upbringing. My parents still hunt their own tree, armed with a saw, Forest Service friends, and a $5 permit*. The friends work in the woods all year and keep an eye out for a tree** that is about the right height, reasonably fluffy, and not likely to thrive long-term due to living in an unfavorable location. Then after Thanksgiving we pile into their truck, venture up gravel access roads in the snow, go for a nice hike, cut down The Tree, and have a marshmallow roast in someone's yard before heading home. It's a magical outing and I'm sorry to say I was a whiny ass about it when I was a teenager. When the new year rolls around, the tree is moved outside and eventually joins a brush pile for burning. When my sister lived at home, the tree had more of an afterlife: it moved to a pasture and she would jump it on horseback until her horse knocked all the needles off. Then, the burn pile, the circle of rural tree life.
I don't know how to calculate the carbon footprint of that sequence of events, but at least there's no poaching or pesticide involved. Regardless I am offsetting it now as I am Team No Tree for my own house, though it's more because I am grinchy, have rambunctious cats, and my mom sends me a swag every year so I get enough pine-scented air to keep me alive through December.
*This is a representative example. Looks like most national forests sell these permits on their own website or in person.
** They used to have very high ceilings, so the tree of choice was subalpine fir, a species that hangs onto its needles for months and smells particularly wintry. Now they get spruces, to fit in a shorter house and train their snoopy cats.
posted by esoterrica at 2:17 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
I don't know how to calculate the carbon footprint of that sequence of events, but at least there's no poaching or pesticide involved. Regardless I am offsetting it now as I am Team No Tree for my own house, though it's more because I am grinchy, have rambunctious cats, and my mom sends me a swag every year so I get enough pine-scented air to keep me alive through December.
*This is a representative example. Looks like most national forests sell these permits on their own website or in person.
** They used to have very high ceilings, so the tree of choice was subalpine fir, a species that hangs onto its needles for months and smells particularly wintry. Now they get spruces, to fit in a shorter house and train their snoopy cats.
posted by esoterrica at 2:17 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
Those pre-lit trees are pretty neat until all the lights in the middle section go out and it turns out there is no way to get them off except cutting them off with wire cutters and then when you wrap just the middle section in new lights it turns out they are a different shade of white from the lights on the top and bottom sections so you rip those out too.
posted by Biblio at 2:28 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Biblio at 2:28 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
This is funny to me because I spent my formative adult years in New York where you can't walk 5 blocks this time of year without coming across someone selling cut trees on the street.
I'm pretty sure someone tried to sell me a stolen Christmas tree last year--they were selling them out of the back of their van for a suspiciously low price. I wanted one, but I am not a Real New Yorker, so I was intimidated by the idea of taking it on the subway.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:28 PM on December 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
I'm pretty sure someone tried to sell me a stolen Christmas tree last year--they were selling them out of the back of their van for a suspiciously low price. I wanted one, but I am not a Real New Yorker, so I was intimidated by the idea of taking it on the subway.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:28 PM on December 10, 2019 [6 favorites]
We were Team Real Tree for ages, but I eventually got tired of going and picking one out, hauling the thing home, getting needles everywhere (and still finding them well into summer) and the PITA of hauling the tree somewhere for disposal after the holiday. Where I lived, there was no curb-side pickup of trees, and you had to haul it about a half-hour away to some city park where there sometimes was a drop-off for trees. Eventually, we jumped to Team Fake Tree and have been very, very happy with the decision.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:33 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 2:33 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
For a long time we went with team, Decorated Tall Cactus. Now I am alone, I go with decorated large leafed philodendron.
posted by Oyéah at 2:36 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 2:36 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
Rosemary plant? For my tiny apartment? I don't know if that counts as a tree or no tree. Perhaps it is in a quantum superposition.
posted by poe at 2:37 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by poe at 2:37 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
Real tree, ~6ish foot tall, usually look for the "natural" or "untrimmed" ones because I grew up cutting down a tree up in the foothills in a forest Clark Griswold-style. So the "perfect cone shape" looks dumb to me, that's not what a pine looks like.
End of season, tree gets put outside on the woodpile until I have time to lop off the branches and section the trunk, then it gets turned into a Spring bonfire.
Plastic trees just don't seem right to me.
posted by caution live frogs at 2:38 PM on December 10, 2019
End of season, tree gets put outside on the woodpile until I have time to lop off the branches and section the trunk, then it gets turned into a Spring bonfire.
Plastic trees just don't seem right to me.
posted by caution live frogs at 2:38 PM on December 10, 2019
We had real trees for a few years and then a living tree that we kept in a big pot for a couple more and now settled on a pair of fake birch trees with LEDs that were bought as a general decoration but do a good job of hanging ornaments.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:49 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:49 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
If you don't live in a place where trees are basically weeds
I do. My back garden has been invaded by little Sitka spruces and I hate them. My neighbor the forester keeps on saying he wants to dig them up and replant them, but it hasn't happened yet. While I'm waiting, he gives me a fine tree every Christmas.
I love the smell of the live trees, and the whole ritual. We always keep a bucket of water near the tree and I've had to use it once. But that's because we use live candles here. The dog has almost stopped vandalizing the tree now, when he is seven.
posted by mumimor at 3:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
I do. My back garden has been invaded by little Sitka spruces and I hate them. My neighbor the forester keeps on saying he wants to dig them up and replant them, but it hasn't happened yet. While I'm waiting, he gives me a fine tree every Christmas.
I love the smell of the live trees, and the whole ritual. We always keep a bucket of water near the tree and I've had to use it once. But that's because we use live candles here. The dog has almost stopped vandalizing the tree now, when he is seven.
posted by mumimor at 3:00 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
A few years ago a Christmas-loving friend gave me a little shrub in a pot with fake snow on it. I gave it a bigger pot after Christmas and put it out on the balcony with all the other plant friends.
During the next year, all the parts with the fake snow-spray dried out and died. But there was enough greenness left that the shrub survived and is still thriving-- it's maybe a little over a foot high now? Might put some lights on it this year and let it be a Christmas tree again.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:10 PM on December 10, 2019
During the next year, all the parts with the fake snow-spray dried out and died. But there was enough greenness left that the shrub survived and is still thriving-- it's maybe a little over a foot high now? Might put some lights on it this year and let it be a Christmas tree again.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:10 PM on December 10, 2019
I like live trees, but I haven't had one since I was in middle school, when my mom realized that the reason my dad and I always seemed to have colds at Christmas was that we were allergic to them.
posted by telophase at 3:16 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by telophase at 3:16 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
Look, I'm just running on fumes from high school physics here, but I would like to formally declare absolute bullshit on the idea that burning a 2m tall tree (that's about 22kg of wood!) releases just 3.5kg of CO2. (Or that chipping a tree is much better.)
They're working on the basis that the combustion CO2 is largely neutral since CO2 was initially sucked out of the air by the tree while it was growing. I assume they are largely accounting for CO2 from agriculture and transport.
A little more on the Carbon Trust's own pages.
posted by biffa at 3:38 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
They're working on the basis that the combustion CO2 is largely neutral since CO2 was initially sucked out of the air by the tree while it was growing. I assume they are largely accounting for CO2 from agriculture and transport.
A little more on the Carbon Trust's own pages.
posted by biffa at 3:38 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
Fake tree centerpiece (suitable for child's project). Take one large telephone book, fold the upper corner of each page back to the spine, creating a pointed top. If you like, fold the lower corners back as well for a smaller modified angle. Glue front and back covers together to make a rounded centerpiece. If the book is too small, glue two books together. Spray with gold paint. Add small decorations, as desired (I like gold foil snowflakes or tiny garlands).
My mother made a wall Christmas tree from plastic canvas, yarn and tiny decorations, something like this. Green or white felt also makes a nice wall Christmas tree. And there are other building materials if you want to decorate but don't want a seasonal investment.
Mom and Dad went back and forth about real trees vs artificial trees. Toward the end, they usually just gathered some branches and stuck them in a pot with some white lights like some of these examples. Simple, no watering or needles in the carpet, and it looked cute twinkling in the living room.
posted by TrishaU at 3:49 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
My mother made a wall Christmas tree from plastic canvas, yarn and tiny decorations, something like this. Green or white felt also makes a nice wall Christmas tree. And there are other building materials if you want to decorate but don't want a seasonal investment.
Mom and Dad went back and forth about real trees vs artificial trees. Toward the end, they usually just gathered some branches and stuck them in a pot with some white lights like some of these examples. Simple, no watering or needles in the carpet, and it looked cute twinkling in the living room.
posted by TrishaU at 3:49 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
Look, I'm just running on fumes from high school physics here, but I would like to formally declare absolute bullshit on the idea that burning a 2m tall tree (that's about 22kg of wood!) releases just 3.5kg of CO2. (Or that chipping a tree is much better.)
Yeah, you would have been better off taking biology. Trees = new carbon (from recent photosynthesis). Plastic = old carbon (from photosynthesis millions of years ago). Chipping a tree and scattering woodchips around is actually a great way to store carbon in the soil, one of the sinks for it that we really can expand.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:13 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
Yeah, you would have been better off taking biology. Trees = new carbon (from recent photosynthesis). Plastic = old carbon (from photosynthesis millions of years ago). Chipping a tree and scattering woodchips around is actually a great way to store carbon in the soil, one of the sinks for it that we really can expand.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:13 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
We've had a fake tree for nigh on 13 years now (same tree). It isn't a pre-lit tree, so yes, I still have to wrap lights on it every year but I kinda like that because I can change my mind and my lights as often as I want. It has only in the last season started to lose a few of the "needles", but not bad at all, so I'll be keeping this quite a while longer.
And I've only had one cat who wants to climb it, but she's also an old lady now and seems to be over that phase. The rest of them just argue over who gets to lie under it.
posted by annieb at 4:18 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
And I've only had one cat who wants to climb it, but she's also an old lady now and seems to be over that phase. The rest of them just argue over who gets to lie under it.
posted by annieb at 4:18 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
Put a lit star on my head, hang glittering geometric shapes dropping nettles all over, the least I'd want is to be burned out back like the Nordic pine of old.
posted by clavdivs at 4:47 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 4:47 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
If we require a Cat Tax and a Dog Tax for certain threads, shouldn't this thread require a Tree Tax?
posted by madajb at 12:53 PM
Here is my tree tax. A 13 year old fake tree, still going strong!
posted by annieb at 4:54 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by madajb at 12:53 PM
Here is my tree tax. A 13 year old fake tree, still going strong!
posted by annieb at 4:54 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
Up until the early-to-mid 2000s, there was a custom in San Francisco on the first Saturday in January (Epiphany?) where people would collect discarded trees from the curb and take them to Ocean Beach for bonfires. There would be a string of bonfires up and down the whole beach. Everyone was drinking and I did quite a bit of wandering from bonfire to bonfire, striking up conversations.
The first year a friend of mine and I participated we loaded as many trees as we could into his Acura Integra - I think we made 3-4 trips. The following year we rented a U-Haul van and loaded it to the brim.
Since then, SF has outlawed the custom because of the carbon produced by the fires. Last I heard the city had built maybe five bonfire containers and those were the only spots where you could have a bonfire.
posted by bendy at 5:01 PM on December 10, 2019
The first year a friend of mine and I participated we loaded as many trees as we could into his Acura Integra - I think we made 3-4 trips. The following year we rented a U-Haul van and loaded it to the brim.
Since then, SF has outlawed the custom because of the carbon produced by the fires. Last I heard the city had built maybe five bonfire containers and those were the only spots where you could have a bonfire.
posted by bendy at 5:01 PM on December 10, 2019
Indoor live tree for me. I bought a little three foot Norfolk Island pine on a whim back in 2017 and decorated her with LED lights and teeny tiny little glass ball ornaments from Target for that Christmas and the next one. Had I not had to re-home all my plants when I moved cross-country this past summer, I'd be decorating that same little tree again.
This year, I got two Norfolks -- they were ridiculously cheap, my new apartment is huge and gets way more natural light than my old one, and when the humid weather comes I'll either pop them out on the patio or take them to a friend's house to luxuriate outside for summer. If they live and thrive, I'll re-home them when they get too big for this place. But I don't expect that to happen soon... they're not fast growers indoors, for one thing, and for another, I like big-ass plants a lot. I'd definitely have no problem sharing my home with a couple of six foot piney beauties.
posted by palomar at 5:09 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
This year, I got two Norfolks -- they were ridiculously cheap, my new apartment is huge and gets way more natural light than my old one, and when the humid weather comes I'll either pop them out on the patio or take them to a friend's house to luxuriate outside for summer. If they live and thrive, I'll re-home them when they get too big for this place. But I don't expect that to happen soon... they're not fast growers indoors, for one thing, and for another, I like big-ass plants a lot. I'd definitely have no problem sharing my home with a couple of six foot piney beauties.
posted by palomar at 5:09 PM on December 10, 2019 [3 favorites]
We have an old 1950's era silver tree. Had it for about 20 years now. But some years we put up a small real tree.
Tree
posted by SoberHighland at 5:33 PM on December 10, 2019 [19 favorites]
Tree
posted by SoberHighland at 5:33 PM on December 10, 2019 [19 favorites]
SoberHighland, that is a beautiful tree!
BTW, I find it fascinating how many of you go with the plastic, even though it makes a lot of sense, specially in regions where pine trees don't grow. Here, I think it would be more socially acceptable to have no tree than to have a plastic tree. We have so many rules about Christmas, and they are hard rules. People argue about the details, but no one contests the basics. In many ways, Denmark is famously liberal. But when it comes to Christmas, we are extremely conservative. Since my granddad and my stepmother died, we have been having more relaxed holidays in our family, but compared to the range of christmassing here on Metafilter, we are still very traditional. And my granddad was Jewish.
posted by mumimor at 5:47 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
BTW, I find it fascinating how many of you go with the plastic, even though it makes a lot of sense, specially in regions where pine trees don't grow. Here, I think it would be more socially acceptable to have no tree than to have a plastic tree. We have so many rules about Christmas, and they are hard rules. People argue about the details, but no one contests the basics. In many ways, Denmark is famously liberal. But when it comes to Christmas, we are extremely conservative. Since my granddad and my stepmother died, we have been having more relaxed holidays in our family, but compared to the range of christmassing here on Metafilter, we are still very traditional. And my granddad was Jewish.
posted by mumimor at 5:47 PM on December 10, 2019 [5 favorites]
Thanks! I'd really like to read about some more of these strict Danish Xmas rules, if you have the time.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:52 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by SoberHighland at 5:52 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
Real tree - preserves open/green space, open/green space sequesters carbon and supports pollinators and other wildlife, tree industry keeps farming in the local economy, farming in the local economy increases resilience.
Never measure only part of a system.
posted by Miko at 5:53 PM on December 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
Never measure only part of a system.
posted by Miko at 5:53 PM on December 10, 2019 [7 favorites]
Welp, here in the Great White North, some days you kill the spruce, and some days the spruce kills you.
posted by No Robots at 6:02 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by No Robots at 6:02 PM on December 10, 2019 [4 favorites]
That silver tree was a thing of sparkly exclamatory beauty! Wow!
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 6:06 PM on December 10, 2019
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 6:06 PM on December 10, 2019
Is anyone else concerned at all about lead exposure from the stabilizers supposedly used in the PVC that artificial trees are made of? It makes fake trees seem much less aesthetically pleasingly to me. I don’t want lead dust in my house.
We planted a potted tree outside one year after it had spent the holidays inside. It promptly died. Turns out it’s not good for outdoor trees to spend time in the heat and dryness and low light inside a house.
I’m allergic to firs but not to pines. The tree lots around here no longer even sell pines. That’s okay, though; we enjoy going to a local farm to cut down a small tree, and our city turns it to useful mulch afterwards. We get to support a local farm, and it smells wonderful.
posted by chromium at 6:31 PM on December 10, 2019
We planted a potted tree outside one year after it had spent the holidays inside. It promptly died. Turns out it’s not good for outdoor trees to spend time in the heat and dryness and low light inside a house.
I’m allergic to firs but not to pines. The tree lots around here no longer even sell pines. That’s okay, though; we enjoy going to a local farm to cut down a small tree, and our city turns it to useful mulch afterwards. We get to support a local farm, and it smells wonderful.
posted by chromium at 6:31 PM on December 10, 2019
Dang, 23skidoo, respect! Here I thought I was hard-core for absolutely refusing to use LED lights.
posted by praemunire at 6:43 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 6:43 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
...also, I just want to let you all know that as a result of reading this post, I just spent twenty minutes re-arranging ornaments on my tree.
posted by praemunire at 7:13 PM on December 10, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 7:13 PM on December 10, 2019 [9 favorites]
Well, I can't sleep, so I'll give it a go.
Christmas in Denmark begins with all the "julefrokoster", Christmas lunches. Most people have several in their calendar, definitely your workplace, your sportsclub, the place you volunteer at, your family and you'll also have one or two friend groups that gather every year. Some people go to ten or more. It's OK to have an untraditional menu, but mostly this is where you really get smørrebrød, beer and snaps. It is normal to drink a lot, and there will be songs written for the occasion, games and speeches and toasts. Oh, and it's called a lunch, but it can happen at any time of the day, from mid-morning to late night. The julefrokost often lasts 8-12 hours. You can refrain from going, but it is not really done. However, this is on the lighter end of Christmas rules.
For advent time there are several rituals. You need both an advent calendar, an advent candle and an advent wreath. The calendar is a cardboard calendar, and you buy it from the National Broadcasting service who also produce a television series for advent with 24 shows. Actually they produce two, one for kids and one for adults, and the commercial stations make their own series. Everyone sees all these series, and a lot of people also follow the maverick series on the radio and podcasts. It's the rule. If you don't, you won't be able to participate in any conversations for all of December.
The candle is a thick candle with the numbers 1-24 printed on it. You light it either during breakfast or dinner or both, if it's thick enough.
The wreath is an arrangement with four candles, often mounted on a fir wreath, but you can play a bit here. Every Sunday you light a candle.
Every Sunday during advent you should be baking cookies for Christmas. I'm not saying you will be deported if you don't, but it's a bad look. If you have guests, or just a delivery guy passing through during advent, they have to have a cookie or a sweet or fruit, or even a glass of wine. That's the rule. You can't have them "carrying out the Yule", that would just be terrible.
There's a book, "Peters Jul", which describes how to do Christmas, and several theater productions that underline the message. AFAIK these aren't mandatory but they are useful.
The day before Christmas Eve, you will probably be making rice porridge, as preparation for the rice pudding you have on Christmas Eve. I'm part of a small minority, along with the royal family, who feel the rice pudding is stupid and snobbish and should go away, but as in many families across the country we have been overruled by inlaws. So this evening, "little Christmas Eve", many people have rice porridge and play board games. This is one of the things we have tried to change, preferring a nice meal with friends and family. Some people decorate the tree at this point, others wait till Christmas Eve. If you decorate your tree before this day, it must either be because your home is your job, or you may be divorced. Or something. It's acceptable but not good if you don't have a valid reason. The tree needs to be decorated with real candles. There are no good reasons not to. My brother and I have astma, not a good enough reason. We live in houses with thatched roofs, not a good enough reason.
Also, remember to give some of the porridge to the nisse. A nisse is like a house elf. Everyone has one. Though after I've insulated and tightened our house, I give the porridge in the barn. This is a tiny detail, but maybe it is at the core of the whole Danish Christmas stuff: basically, we are not celebrating Jesus, but Yule. The candles and the food and the parties are all about winter solstice and the nisse is the house god of pre-Christian times. It's also to a huge extent about community. At all the parties we confirm that we are part of the community, and the many toasts and special songs confirm this. Christmas Eve is about the family. You can and should invite others in, but it's like all the Julefrokost parties describe your wider community and then at that special day, your very core community is celebrated. Socially, it's very important to have a place to be on Christmas Eve. You can't go to work in January and say you were alone. But you can volunteer and help feed the homeless or support those who have to work.
On Christmas Eve, everyone watches a Disney special show on television, and of course all the advent series' finale. You can't not do this. If you are religious, this is the day you go to church, in the afternoon.
The main feast is on Christmas Eve. The menu is determined by which region you live in, but it is always the same. We are a bit wild here, but not really, we have roast goose, pork, boiled potatoes, potatoes coated with caramel, red cabbage, kale salad and lots and lots of gravy. Then that rice pudding with a whole almond hidden in it. The person who finds the almond wins a gift. Everyone does this. The people who have rice porridge instead of pudding, which is more traditional and better, have the porridge before the roasts, and the almond is hidden in there. There are only few possible variations. You can perhaps have ham, or duck, or sausage, and your kale is normally creamed rather than a salad. But you can't just have beef or turkey or fish. I remember one year my mother made turkey because we had been living in England. It was the wrongest wrong thing ever, I was so embarrassed.
After eating and clearing up the dishes, it is time for singing and dancing. There are small variations on this, but basically, the whole family holds hands and walks around the Christmas tree while singing hymns and a couple of more festive songs. In this article, there is an embedded video of a real family Christmas which looks like a Bunuel movie, but it is absolutely true.
Finally, it is time for the presents. In the video linked above, Santa hands out the presents, but that can vary. However you do it, it is good style for every present to be handed out individually with everyone looking and admiring the gift, before the next one arrives. This means gift-giving can take many hours. There will be tons of sweets on the table along with coffee and tea, and after a while, there will be leftovers from dinner, on rye bread. Religious people may go to a midnight mass, but it's definitely not required.
Finally, you can go to bed.
Next morning, Christmas Day, is not an important holiday in Denmark. Some people will go to church, but as mentioned above the church has been smart enough to realize that the action is on Christmas Eve. Most people sleep in. Food during the day is leftovers. But on Boxing Day, we get back to the business of Julefrokost, and that will continue through the 28th of December. Most people have family Julefrokost during the days between Christmas and New Year, or close friends, not work.
When I was a child in our family, since we were often snowed in during Christmas, Julefrokost would be the only daily meal, at 4PM, and we would be the party of whoever was there. At this time of year, it's really dark, so people would sleep in, then go for a walk or chop some firewood, and lunch with a lot of snaps at four was a perfect end of the day.
posted by mumimor at 7:47 PM on December 10, 2019 [37 favorites]
Christmas in Denmark begins with all the "julefrokoster", Christmas lunches. Most people have several in their calendar, definitely your workplace, your sportsclub, the place you volunteer at, your family and you'll also have one or two friend groups that gather every year. Some people go to ten or more. It's OK to have an untraditional menu, but mostly this is where you really get smørrebrød, beer and snaps. It is normal to drink a lot, and there will be songs written for the occasion, games and speeches and toasts. Oh, and it's called a lunch, but it can happen at any time of the day, from mid-morning to late night. The julefrokost often lasts 8-12 hours. You can refrain from going, but it is not really done. However, this is on the lighter end of Christmas rules.
For advent time there are several rituals. You need both an advent calendar, an advent candle and an advent wreath. The calendar is a cardboard calendar, and you buy it from the National Broadcasting service who also produce a television series for advent with 24 shows. Actually they produce two, one for kids and one for adults, and the commercial stations make their own series. Everyone sees all these series, and a lot of people also follow the maverick series on the radio and podcasts. It's the rule. If you don't, you won't be able to participate in any conversations for all of December.
The candle is a thick candle with the numbers 1-24 printed on it. You light it either during breakfast or dinner or both, if it's thick enough.
The wreath is an arrangement with four candles, often mounted on a fir wreath, but you can play a bit here. Every Sunday you light a candle.
Every Sunday during advent you should be baking cookies for Christmas. I'm not saying you will be deported if you don't, but it's a bad look. If you have guests, or just a delivery guy passing through during advent, they have to have a cookie or a sweet or fruit, or even a glass of wine. That's the rule. You can't have them "carrying out the Yule", that would just be terrible.
There's a book, "Peters Jul", which describes how to do Christmas, and several theater productions that underline the message. AFAIK these aren't mandatory but they are useful.
The day before Christmas Eve, you will probably be making rice porridge, as preparation for the rice pudding you have on Christmas Eve. I'm part of a small minority, along with the royal family, who feel the rice pudding is stupid and snobbish and should go away, but as in many families across the country we have been overruled by inlaws. So this evening, "little Christmas Eve", many people have rice porridge and play board games. This is one of the things we have tried to change, preferring a nice meal with friends and family. Some people decorate the tree at this point, others wait till Christmas Eve. If you decorate your tree before this day, it must either be because your home is your job, or you may be divorced. Or something. It's acceptable but not good if you don't have a valid reason. The tree needs to be decorated with real candles. There are no good reasons not to. My brother and I have astma, not a good enough reason. We live in houses with thatched roofs, not a good enough reason.
Also, remember to give some of the porridge to the nisse. A nisse is like a house elf. Everyone has one. Though after I've insulated and tightened our house, I give the porridge in the barn. This is a tiny detail, but maybe it is at the core of the whole Danish Christmas stuff: basically, we are not celebrating Jesus, but Yule. The candles and the food and the parties are all about winter solstice and the nisse is the house god of pre-Christian times. It's also to a huge extent about community. At all the parties we confirm that we are part of the community, and the many toasts and special songs confirm this. Christmas Eve is about the family. You can and should invite others in, but it's like all the Julefrokost parties describe your wider community and then at that special day, your very core community is celebrated. Socially, it's very important to have a place to be on Christmas Eve. You can't go to work in January and say you were alone. But you can volunteer and help feed the homeless or support those who have to work.
On Christmas Eve, everyone watches a Disney special show on television, and of course all the advent series' finale. You can't not do this. If you are religious, this is the day you go to church, in the afternoon.
The main feast is on Christmas Eve. The menu is determined by which region you live in, but it is always the same. We are a bit wild here, but not really, we have roast goose, pork, boiled potatoes, potatoes coated with caramel, red cabbage, kale salad and lots and lots of gravy. Then that rice pudding with a whole almond hidden in it. The person who finds the almond wins a gift. Everyone does this. The people who have rice porridge instead of pudding, which is more traditional and better, have the porridge before the roasts, and the almond is hidden in there. There are only few possible variations. You can perhaps have ham, or duck, or sausage, and your kale is normally creamed rather than a salad. But you can't just have beef or turkey or fish. I remember one year my mother made turkey because we had been living in England. It was the wrongest wrong thing ever, I was so embarrassed.
After eating and clearing up the dishes, it is time for singing and dancing. There are small variations on this, but basically, the whole family holds hands and walks around the Christmas tree while singing hymns and a couple of more festive songs. In this article, there is an embedded video of a real family Christmas which looks like a Bunuel movie, but it is absolutely true.
Finally, it is time for the presents. In the video linked above, Santa hands out the presents, but that can vary. However you do it, it is good style for every present to be handed out individually with everyone looking and admiring the gift, before the next one arrives. This means gift-giving can take many hours. There will be tons of sweets on the table along with coffee and tea, and after a while, there will be leftovers from dinner, on rye bread. Religious people may go to a midnight mass, but it's definitely not required.
Finally, you can go to bed.
Next morning, Christmas Day, is not an important holiday in Denmark. Some people will go to church, but as mentioned above the church has been smart enough to realize that the action is on Christmas Eve. Most people sleep in. Food during the day is leftovers. But on Boxing Day, we get back to the business of Julefrokost, and that will continue through the 28th of December. Most people have family Julefrokost during the days between Christmas and New Year, or close friends, not work.
When I was a child in our family, since we were often snowed in during Christmas, Julefrokost would be the only daily meal, at 4PM, and we would be the party of whoever was there. At this time of year, it's really dark, so people would sleep in, then go for a walk or chop some firewood, and lunch with a lot of snaps at four was a perfect end of the day.
posted by mumimor at 7:47 PM on December 10, 2019 [37 favorites]
Well, Danish Christmas lasts until Easter, so I guess it makes sense that it gets so much attention.
(In a lot of YouTube videos of that song, the people singing seem awfully tired. I now have a better sense of why that might be.)
posted by Not A Thing at 8:08 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
(In a lot of YouTube videos of that song, the people singing seem awfully tired. I now have a better sense of why that might be.)
posted by Not A Thing at 8:08 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
I have three Norfolk pines right now, one of which is six feet tall. So it felt a little silly to go out and buy a six foot tall Meyer spruce. But the Norfolk pines just aren’t up to holding much weight beyond a few twinkly lights and some very light balls. The Meyer spruce, on the other hand, has branches that will hold anything. I think I can never have another variety now that I’ve been so spoiled by the strength of Meyer spruces...hang any ornament anywhere - every branch is a rod of steel. Leaving the Norfolk pines to sway daintily amidst the twinkly lights....
posted by Tandem Affinity at 8:21 PM on December 10, 2019
posted by Tandem Affinity at 8:21 PM on December 10, 2019
That’s a lot of Yule, mumimor !
posted by clew at 8:38 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 8:38 PM on December 10, 2019 [1 favorite]
The artificial tree originally came from Leutonia, where trees are now extinct.
posted by No Robots at 8:53 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by No Robots at 8:53 PM on December 10, 2019 [2 favorites]
Up until the early-to-mid 2000s, there was a custom in San Francisco on the first Saturday in January (Epiphany?) where people would collect discarded trees from the curb and take them to Ocean Beach for bonfires.
Oh shit, you just brought back one of my favorite Oakland visual memories, of a Christmas tree on a stand in flames under one of the underpasses somewhere in the 20s between Telegraph and MLK.
The East Bay Rats used to have a big Christmas tree bonfire around that time of year. I kinda miss bikers.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:54 PM on December 10, 2019
Oh shit, you just brought back one of my favorite Oakland visual memories, of a Christmas tree on a stand in flames under one of the underpasses somewhere in the 20s between Telegraph and MLK.
The East Bay Rats used to have a big Christmas tree bonfire around that time of year. I kinda miss bikers.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:54 PM on December 10, 2019
Is anyone else concerned at all about lead exposure from the stabilizers supposedly used in the PVC that artificial trees are made of?
Oh, great. I'd just about worked myself up to using my crappy shedding artificial tree again, on account of continuing to use it will burn neither the earth nor my wallet any faster.
posted by asperity at 10:20 PM on December 10, 2019
Oh, great. I'd just about worked myself up to using my crappy shedding artificial tree again, on account of continuing to use it will burn neither the earth nor my wallet any faster.
posted by asperity at 10:20 PM on December 10, 2019
mumimor, we spend Christmas Eve every year with an old au-pair who is from the Faroe Islands, and her family, we have a similar feast and do the rice pudding with the hidden almond! We have to guess who had it, with everyone doing their best poker face.
posted by ellieBOA at 1:03 AM on December 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by ellieBOA at 1:03 AM on December 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
infested with giant conifer aphids
After some anxious googling, I'm relieved to learn that giant conifer aphids may be giant compared to other aphids, but they're not so giant compared to, say, people. Half a centimetre or so.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 3:26 AM on December 11, 2019 [5 favorites]
After some anxious googling, I'm relieved to learn that giant conifer aphids may be giant compared to other aphids, but they're not so giant compared to, say, people. Half a centimetre or so.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 3:26 AM on December 11, 2019 [5 favorites]
Mumimor, flagged as fantastic. Thanks for sharing all that.
posted by Miko at 3:57 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Miko at 3:57 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'd like to have a tree, but it feels like a lot of work for just me plus one of my dogs really really likes to mark his territory so the tree skirt would be a pee pad, which ew and no. I got a 2' tall fake tree as a compromise, but the kitten was gnawing on it before it was even taken out of the box, so that went to work and is brightening up my desk. We always had a fake tree growing up, but after I left the house my parents switched over to a real one. My dad would volunteer at the Lion's Club Christmas tree sale, so I think that's where that came from.
After reading the post, I was all set to make a yarghy comment about the "girlfriend's anxiety" comment from the fire risk article (....I am that anxious girlfriend (and work in safety so am extra aware of fire risks) so feel particularly attacked) but all of your comments were interesting and lovely, and softened my outrage considerably. Tis the season.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 4:52 AM on December 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
After reading the post, I was all set to make a yarghy comment about the "girlfriend's anxiety" comment from the fire risk article (....I am that anxious girlfriend (and work in safety so am extra aware of fire risks) so feel particularly attacked) but all of your comments were interesting and lovely, and softened my outrage considerably. Tis the season.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 4:52 AM on December 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
Never measure only part of a system.
A system which needs to account for transporting that tree.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:05 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
A system which needs to account for transporting that tree.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:05 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
mumimor, if I ever want to persuade my SO into moving to Denmark (its distinctly possible) I will show her your post (except maybe the bit about being snowed in).
posted by biffa at 5:15 AM on December 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by biffa at 5:15 AM on December 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm not a Christian, but I celebrate the holiday I grew up with in my own way, returning to the imperative to bring a little light, coziness, and color into the depths of winter as a balm against the grey.
My earliest tradition was to find the Charlie Browniest tree on any given tree lot—the smallest, barest, most lopsided mess of a thing there, which I took on as noblesse oblige for the right to live in a universe that contained wonders like custard tarts, Eartha Kitt, and Citroëns. I'd bring home a little heap of sadness, which I often got for next to nothing, or nothing, when I'd find it on the pile for the fire barrel and ask for it, then give it a good shake, mount it in its stand in my front room, and approach the process of decoration with the gentle delicacy of a tattoo artist covering the scars of unkind surgeries and self-harm. In the end, they'd always be just right, and just mine, and I'd keep them well-tended and in place until I celebrated a secular Epiphany with my friends and family, and later through Candlemas, when I discovered there was a legitimate ritual reason to keep my lights up even longer through those dim winters.
My friend and informal drag mother had a fantastic vintage aluminum tree, which looked deliciously space-age turning in on its rotating stand in front of twin color wheels, but I always hated helping him trim the thing, as it was made when the little bits of aluminum were still thick enough that it was like plunging your hands into a tornado full of razor blades. My nicked-up associate, though, would always come up with the perfect vintage frock for his bijou Christmas Eve dinner parties, and I would make a traditional plum pudding that I'd end up cursing as I attempted to get it to flambé appropriately without setting any coifs alight while we all enjoyed a lovely vegetarian holiday meal to the tune of bossa nova music.
I never had an artificial tree because they look terrible, smell both plasticky and scentlessly soulless, and, as my grandmother warned, were invented by a toilet brush company, which was a claim I always thought to be within the realm of her usual background-level magical thinking until I discovered, long after her death, that it was the genuine truth. There has never been, and will never be, a decorated toilet brush in my home, thank you very much, particularly as my now-late friend is, I believe in my heart of hearts, metaphorically hovering somewhere nearby in a glittering off-the-shoulder black sequined cocktail dress with matching slingback mules, sharing a cocktail with my glamorous Baltimore grandmother, and watching over my long season in lights like a drag angel.
One year, though, twenty years back, while I was overwhelmed with work, I missed out on the tree lots, and they'd burned all the Charlie Browniest trees in preparation to shut down for the season. My friends suggested that I get an artificial tree and stop going on about toilet brushes and tornadoes full of razor blades, but I was resolute, so I drug out my recently decommissioned 1920s Hoover 700 vacuum cleaner and decorated it as a petulant statement against falseness.
"If I'm going to have a fake thing in my window, it could pretty much be anything," I sniffed, but the funny thing was that the decorated vacuum cleaner was, in fact, sort of amazing. It was the right shape, and it suited my love of classic industrial design, and I wasn't getting rid of it anytime soon, since it'd survived seventy-seven years of use by then and, even if my apartment's increasing ruglessness made it less useful, it was still a thing that met William Morris' standard of being beautiful, even if no longer useful. I figured it'd be a one-time art piece, and I'd go back to the Charlie Browniest tree on the lots…but the next year, when thinking about a tree, I dug out the 1920s Hoover 700, a jar of metal polish, and and old t-shirt, and polished the aluminum motor housing to a fine gleam, then placed it, strung it with lights, garlands, and ornaments, and let my statement ride.
In 2019, I've been busy, and my neighbors have chided me for being late in getting it into the window, telling me that it's become a part of life on my street, something people walk by on dark winter evenings and point out. I keep intending to make a new bag for it from some splendid sequined fabric, to further the effect, but like most people, I have once again procrastinated my way into I'll-do-that-next-year. When it's up, it'll resume its job as the sentinel of the promise of light and new life against the axial tilt of the planet and the fallow season, and I'm looking forward to coming home from work to see it there in the window, then have a cup of tea in the big chair by the other window, basking in the slowly-changing lights I string it with in a proof that traditions don't need to be faithful to a shared, collective mania to be a warm reminder that rites and rituals are still good for us, no matter what we believe. Its feeling of artificiality has faded for me, though I'm still glad that it's not a dust-accumulating toilet brush made of poison and its ecological impact was felt and forgotten a long, long time ago.
In the velvet darkness
Of the blackest night
Burning bright, there's a guiding star
No matter what, or who you are
When I have a free moment, I'll assemble the whole plateau, with my creche of toy robots and Matchbox Citroëns, get the ornaments just so, string the lights, gently add the finishing touch of a pair of slingback mules sitting proudly to the side, fix myself a stemmed glass of milk, crushed ice, and grenadine, and put on a little bossa nova music to set the mood.
There's a light, light
In the darkness of everybody's life
posted by sonascope at 5:39 AM on December 11, 2019 [14 favorites]
My earliest tradition was to find the Charlie Browniest tree on any given tree lot—the smallest, barest, most lopsided mess of a thing there, which I took on as noblesse oblige for the right to live in a universe that contained wonders like custard tarts, Eartha Kitt, and Citroëns. I'd bring home a little heap of sadness, which I often got for next to nothing, or nothing, when I'd find it on the pile for the fire barrel and ask for it, then give it a good shake, mount it in its stand in my front room, and approach the process of decoration with the gentle delicacy of a tattoo artist covering the scars of unkind surgeries and self-harm. In the end, they'd always be just right, and just mine, and I'd keep them well-tended and in place until I celebrated a secular Epiphany with my friends and family, and later through Candlemas, when I discovered there was a legitimate ritual reason to keep my lights up even longer through those dim winters.
My friend and informal drag mother had a fantastic vintage aluminum tree, which looked deliciously space-age turning in on its rotating stand in front of twin color wheels, but I always hated helping him trim the thing, as it was made when the little bits of aluminum were still thick enough that it was like plunging your hands into a tornado full of razor blades. My nicked-up associate, though, would always come up with the perfect vintage frock for his bijou Christmas Eve dinner parties, and I would make a traditional plum pudding that I'd end up cursing as I attempted to get it to flambé appropriately without setting any coifs alight while we all enjoyed a lovely vegetarian holiday meal to the tune of bossa nova music.
I never had an artificial tree because they look terrible, smell both plasticky and scentlessly soulless, and, as my grandmother warned, were invented by a toilet brush company, which was a claim I always thought to be within the realm of her usual background-level magical thinking until I discovered, long after her death, that it was the genuine truth. There has never been, and will never be, a decorated toilet brush in my home, thank you very much, particularly as my now-late friend is, I believe in my heart of hearts, metaphorically hovering somewhere nearby in a glittering off-the-shoulder black sequined cocktail dress with matching slingback mules, sharing a cocktail with my glamorous Baltimore grandmother, and watching over my long season in lights like a drag angel.
One year, though, twenty years back, while I was overwhelmed with work, I missed out on the tree lots, and they'd burned all the Charlie Browniest trees in preparation to shut down for the season. My friends suggested that I get an artificial tree and stop going on about toilet brushes and tornadoes full of razor blades, but I was resolute, so I drug out my recently decommissioned 1920s Hoover 700 vacuum cleaner and decorated it as a petulant statement against falseness.
"If I'm going to have a fake thing in my window, it could pretty much be anything," I sniffed, but the funny thing was that the decorated vacuum cleaner was, in fact, sort of amazing. It was the right shape, and it suited my love of classic industrial design, and I wasn't getting rid of it anytime soon, since it'd survived seventy-seven years of use by then and, even if my apartment's increasing ruglessness made it less useful, it was still a thing that met William Morris' standard of being beautiful, even if no longer useful. I figured it'd be a one-time art piece, and I'd go back to the Charlie Browniest tree on the lots…but the next year, when thinking about a tree, I dug out the 1920s Hoover 700, a jar of metal polish, and and old t-shirt, and polished the aluminum motor housing to a fine gleam, then placed it, strung it with lights, garlands, and ornaments, and let my statement ride.
In 2019, I've been busy, and my neighbors have chided me for being late in getting it into the window, telling me that it's become a part of life on my street, something people walk by on dark winter evenings and point out. I keep intending to make a new bag for it from some splendid sequined fabric, to further the effect, but like most people, I have once again procrastinated my way into I'll-do-that-next-year. When it's up, it'll resume its job as the sentinel of the promise of light and new life against the axial tilt of the planet and the fallow season, and I'm looking forward to coming home from work to see it there in the window, then have a cup of tea in the big chair by the other window, basking in the slowly-changing lights I string it with in a proof that traditions don't need to be faithful to a shared, collective mania to be a warm reminder that rites and rituals are still good for us, no matter what we believe. Its feeling of artificiality has faded for me, though I'm still glad that it's not a dust-accumulating toilet brush made of poison and its ecological impact was felt and forgotten a long, long time ago.
In the velvet darkness
Of the blackest night
Burning bright, there's a guiding star
No matter what, or who you are
When I have a free moment, I'll assemble the whole plateau, with my creche of toy robots and Matchbox Citroëns, get the ornaments just so, string the lights, gently add the finishing touch of a pair of slingback mules sitting proudly to the side, fix myself a stemmed glass of milk, crushed ice, and grenadine, and put on a little bossa nova music to set the mood.
There's a light, light
In the darkness of everybody's life
posted by sonascope at 5:39 AM on December 11, 2019 [14 favorites]
For those in cat households who want a tree.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 5:47 AM on December 11, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 5:47 AM on December 11, 2019 [5 favorites]
A system which needs to account for transporting that tree.
It needs to account for everything - not just carbon inputs/outputs, though that's essential information.
posted by Miko at 5:55 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
It needs to account for everything - not just carbon inputs/outputs, though that's essential information.
posted by Miko at 5:55 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
We've always had real trees and enjoyed the tradition of taking our son to choose one in the woods, have it cut down and bring it home.
Last year it was absolutely pissing it down with rain on the only day we had free, and had been for days. We didn't fancy getting covered in mud to bring a soaking tree home so we diverted into a local shop and bought a nice artificial one.
I can see it lasting a good 20-30 years - the rest of our lives. We'll probably create a new tradition of repairing the Christmas tree.
posted by dowcrag at 6:41 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
Last year it was absolutely pissing it down with rain on the only day we had free, and had been for days. We didn't fancy getting covered in mud to bring a soaking tree home so we diverted into a local shop and bought a nice artificial one.
I can see it lasting a good 20-30 years - the rest of our lives. We'll probably create a new tradition of repairing the Christmas tree.
posted by dowcrag at 6:41 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
I have a newish roommate this year, and we got the tree this past Saturday in advance of my annual open-house hang-out "hey let's all go on an expedition to Dyker Heights" light-peeping party. I should mention that my roommate is a bit on the bigger side of the BMI index, FYI.
We both favored a real tree (which each year I've been getting from a team of dreadlocked Quebecois hipsters who drive down from Canada and set up shop two blocks away); as we were discussing what size to get, I pointed out the corner that I usually put the tree in. My roommate studied it. "So...it should probably be as tall as me." Then he studied the corner more, and went to go stand in it. Then he looked at himself. "And....let's be honest, it should also probably be as big around as me."
We did indeed use this guideline when selecting our tree this year. We did not explain to the Quebcois hipsters.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:43 AM on December 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
We both favored a real tree (which each year I've been getting from a team of dreadlocked Quebecois hipsters who drive down from Canada and set up shop two blocks away); as we were discussing what size to get, I pointed out the corner that I usually put the tree in. My roommate studied it. "So...it should probably be as tall as me." Then he studied the corner more, and went to go stand in it. Then he looked at himself. "And....let's be honest, it should also probably be as big around as me."
We did indeed use this guideline when selecting our tree this year. We did not explain to the Quebcois hipsters.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:43 AM on December 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
If we have to have a tree, fake tree is best. Pine trees are gross. They're sappy, pokey, make a mess, stink up your house with toilet cleaner, dangerous, and are kind of a bleak and vulgar display of death in what's supposed to be a cheerful time of year.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:00 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:00 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
Does anyone actually use pine trees as Christmas trees? In the eastern US, it seems like they're usually spruce or fir, maybe hemlock in the Southeast. My mom was raised in rural Georgia, and she brought to us her family tradition of the humble Eastern red cedar (really a juniper). But I don't think I've ever actually seen a pine Christmas tree (other than Norfolk Island pines).
posted by hydropsyche at 8:41 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by hydropsyche at 8:41 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
Mine's a Fraser fir and it does not smell like toilet cleaner.
I understand and respect the aesthetic of people (like sonascope, it sounds like?) who cultivate and embrace the vulgar for their Christmas celebrations, but if you're doing that, you want plastic, not actual nature. Nature is incapable of vulgarity. I'll worry about the danger when I no longer have wood, cloth, and yarn all over the rest of my apartment.
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
I understand and respect the aesthetic of people (like sonascope, it sounds like?) who cultivate and embrace the vulgar for their Christmas celebrations, but if you're doing that, you want plastic, not actual nature. Nature is incapable of vulgarity. I'll worry about the danger when I no longer have wood, cloth, and yarn all over the rest of my apartment.
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
Then that rice pudding with a whole almond hidden in it.
My Danish-American relatives do this, also the dancing around the tree while singing, also the board games.
I feel like you really need to grow up with that rice pudding to appreciate it. It's a highpoint of the meal to them and feels like it's missing a bunch of ingredients (sugar, egg, flavorings) to me. I gladly forgo the potential to find the almond in exchange for having only a very very small serving.
Seriously, it is the most disappointing pudding.
My family, being Swedish-American, had Swedish blitz torte, a delicious cake with meringue and whipped cream.
posted by Frowner at 9:08 AM on December 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
My Danish-American relatives do this, also the dancing around the tree while singing, also the board games.
I feel like you really need to grow up with that rice pudding to appreciate it. It's a highpoint of the meal to them and feels like it's missing a bunch of ingredients (sugar, egg, flavorings) to me. I gladly forgo the potential to find the almond in exchange for having only a very very small serving.
Seriously, it is the most disappointing pudding.
My family, being Swedish-American, had Swedish blitz torte, a delicious cake with meringue and whipped cream.
posted by Frowner at 9:08 AM on December 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yes, I am always trying to get that rice pudding fired, but my sister in law and the nephews love it.
As I said, on my mothers side of the family, we had a bowl of porridge before the mains, a bit like when you have Yorkshire pudding before the roast in northern England, to save on the expensive meat. As a consequence, we didn't need both a goose and a pork roast back then. And then we often had mousse au chocolate for dessert.
My favorite memory from back then is actually that I always woke up hours before everyone else on Christmas Day, and I'd go out in the kitchen and make tea and gĂĄsesnitter, little triangles of rye bread with goose leftovers.
posted by mumimor at 9:16 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
As I said, on my mothers side of the family, we had a bowl of porridge before the mains, a bit like when you have Yorkshire pudding before the roast in northern England, to save on the expensive meat. As a consequence, we didn't need both a goose and a pork roast back then. And then we often had mousse au chocolate for dessert.
My favorite memory from back then is actually that I always woke up hours before everyone else on Christmas Day, and I'd go out in the kitchen and make tea and gĂĄsesnitter, little triangles of rye bread with goose leftovers.
posted by mumimor at 9:16 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
have y'all considered the ecological benefits of just being a quaker
I have never felt more completely and 100% seen on MetaFilter, thank you.
posted by mostly vowels at 9:38 AM on December 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
I have never felt more completely and 100% seen on MetaFilter, thank you.
posted by mostly vowels at 9:38 AM on December 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
I have very lovely childhood memories of Christmas trees, and Santa Lucia celebrations in school, and lefsa with sugar, and krumkake (grew up in Minnesota) but now I live in Arizona and I am not a Christian, and I've reached middle age and I'm fed with with reflexive social participation in Christian rituals, so no tree for me!
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 9:40 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 9:40 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
have y'all considered the ecological benefits of just being a quaker
as a sometime Quaker attendee, I didn't get this comment. Most Quakers celebrate Christmas and mostly have trees.
posted by Miko at 10:42 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
as a sometime Quaker attendee, I didn't get this comment. Most Quakers celebrate Christmas and mostly have trees.
posted by Miko at 10:42 AM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
What does "locally sourced" mean in the context of the UK? I think here in California it's anything within 150 miles.
I usually get one from Delancy Street because I like their causes but they're definitely not local. Looks like they come from the next state over (Oregon), 550 miles away.
posted by small_ruminant at 1:00 PM on December 11, 2019
I usually get one from Delancy Street because I like their causes but they're definitely not local. Looks like they come from the next state over (Oregon), 550 miles away.
posted by small_ruminant at 1:00 PM on December 11, 2019
> For advent time there are several rituals.
So... the same procedure as last year?
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:41 PM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
So... the same procedure as last year?
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:41 PM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
The county I work in leads the nation in Christmas tree production. I hear they're currently adding more Turkish fir to the mix to improve the genetics - improves branch formation in some way, but reduces the scent. ETA: loquacious speaks the truth about all the management effort that goes into Christmas trees. They're also currently trialing things you can spray on the top tip to keep it from growing too long or otherwise making an imperfect shape.
That said, my parents' artificial tree is pushing 40 years old, and I love setting it up. Dad calculated how to get an even light distribution for each tier, so you can add lights as you go, which makes it easier to get good results, and the needles are long and piney and good for hiding cords and hangers in. I remember the year I was deemed old enough to help set up the tree and how exciting it was.
Dad also has a Norfolk Island pine that is also 40-ish and only about four feet tall. Jacques has his own Christmas lights but I always considered him more as a very quiet, non-demanding pet.
posted by momus_window at 4:07 PM on December 11, 2019
That said, my parents' artificial tree is pushing 40 years old, and I love setting it up. Dad calculated how to get an even light distribution for each tier, so you can add lights as you go, which makes it easier to get good results, and the needles are long and piney and good for hiding cords and hangers in. I remember the year I was deemed old enough to help set up the tree and how exciting it was.
Dad also has a Norfolk Island pine that is also 40-ish and only about four feet tall. Jacques has his own Christmas lights but I always considered him more as a very quiet, non-demanding pet.
posted by momus_window at 4:07 PM on December 11, 2019
We did the potted, replantable thing a while back, it needed to last 5 years to beat the chopped trees for cost, it did three. My SO likes the whole getting ready for Xmas ritual though, so some value there too. There's no chance of me persuading her to go without a tree. I do chop the tree up for firewood so it does displace a bit of carbon from natural gas.
posted by biffa at 4:37 PM on December 11, 2019
posted by biffa at 4:37 PM on December 11, 2019
have y'all considered the ecological benefits of just being a quaker
as a sometime Quaker attendee, I didn't get this comment. Most Quakers celebrate Christmas and mostly have trees.
My Quaker experience isn't super wide ranging, but I think the point is that at least in a lot of unprogrammed Quaker meetings, there is (by default of being unprogrammed silent worship) not the kind of liturgical calendar emphasis on Christmas the way there is in other Christian traditions with programmed worship. This is pretty consistent with the fact that Quakers historically do not have a designated Sabbath day, because all days are holy (hence the tradition of First Day, Second Day, etc). My meeting house does not have a tree or any seasonal Christmas decoration, and the only reason you'd know it was Christmas around our meeting house is we do a very optional second hour (i.e. what most other churches would call coffee hour) Christmas variety show and carol singing. There is not a "special" Christmas Eve service where I worship.
I don't doubt that many if not most Quakers observe Christmas with their own private home decor and rituals. But the Quaker form of worship and holiday observance is a world away from the Episcopalian midnight services/Advent calendar/specific Gospel readings/infinity pointsettias on the altar that I grew up with.
(for what it's worth, I do not have a tree in my home)
posted by mostly vowels at 6:17 PM on December 11, 2019
as a sometime Quaker attendee, I didn't get this comment. Most Quakers celebrate Christmas and mostly have trees.
My Quaker experience isn't super wide ranging, but I think the point is that at least in a lot of unprogrammed Quaker meetings, there is (by default of being unprogrammed silent worship) not the kind of liturgical calendar emphasis on Christmas the way there is in other Christian traditions with programmed worship. This is pretty consistent with the fact that Quakers historically do not have a designated Sabbath day, because all days are holy (hence the tradition of First Day, Second Day, etc). My meeting house does not have a tree or any seasonal Christmas decoration, and the only reason you'd know it was Christmas around our meeting house is we do a very optional second hour (i.e. what most other churches would call coffee hour) Christmas variety show and carol singing. There is not a "special" Christmas Eve service where I worship.
I don't doubt that many if not most Quakers observe Christmas with their own private home decor and rituals. But the Quaker form of worship and holiday observance is a world away from the Episcopalian midnight services/Advent calendar/specific Gospel readings/infinity pointsettias on the altar that I grew up with.
(for what it's worth, I do not have a tree in my home)
posted by mostly vowels at 6:17 PM on December 11, 2019
Well, all of that is true, but I also know of few Mainline Christian denominations that typically have a tree in the sanctuary.
posted by Miko at 7:37 PM on December 11, 2019
posted by Miko at 7:37 PM on December 11, 2019
Spouse and I have been using the same artificial tree for the last 21 years with the exception of last year when we harvested our own tree from under a power line and 13 years ago when we weren't home for Xmas. It has stood up exceptionally well and, IMO, looks pretty realistic. I think we'll be harvesting a tree again this year but then it'll be back to the artificial tree.
posted by Mitheral at 8:46 PM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitheral at 8:46 PM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
Nothing says Christmas like watching a tree die.
posted by fairmettle at 12:49 AM on December 12, 2019
posted by fairmettle at 12:49 AM on December 12, 2019
My wife and I both grew up with artificial trees and after we got married decided that we would only have real trees like classy people. That lasted a few short years. That's just way too much work and mess. I'd rather have no tree.
I scoff at the suggestion that having a tree for 10 years is unlikely, we had our first one for longer than that, and only got a new one because it was on clearance super cheap and was an upgrade. The last few years we've had a medium sized year round tree, a small table top tree for a certain set of decorations, and since those don't really count, the actual Christmas tree.
It's quite festive in here even if we don't get around to the other decorations.
posted by bongo_x at 2:29 AM on December 12, 2019
I scoff at the suggestion that having a tree for 10 years is unlikely, we had our first one for longer than that, and only got a new one because it was on clearance super cheap and was an upgrade. The last few years we've had a medium sized year round tree, a small table top tree for a certain set of decorations, and since those don't really count, the actual Christmas tree.
It's quite festive in here even if we don't get around to the other decorations.
posted by bongo_x at 2:29 AM on December 12, 2019
Nancy has the definitive take on the subject.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:21 AM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:21 AM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
We grew up with a fake tree, and the ritual of fitting the branches into the colored slots was really special. My mom threw it out at some point after my dad died, and I was forever heartbroken.
Tried to have a real tree for a year. We lived in an apartment at the time, with very low ceilings in all rooms but our bedroom, so we put it in our bedroom. It smelled lovely. But the next year I developed an allergy anytime I worked in our yard too close to pine trees, so we decided we'd get a fake.
It was the last flocked white tree at Lowes, the display tree, and I had to drag it home in three different grocery bags, at which point I realized it was too tall for our ceilings. It was beautiful, but the flocking shed everywhere even worse than pine needles. The wired lights eventually quit working. I'm currently trying to freecycle it.
This year bought a $30 turquoise tree from walmart (price has gone up a bit, but they also have it in purple) and damn do I love the kitschy look of it from the street. We call Christmas "Kitschmas" in our house, being more-or-less agnostic Jews. Everything we love about Christmas is Pagan, anyway, including this. It's not the most high quality tree and needed some extra support to hold up our ridiculous rainbow topper, but it's just beautiful and I hope to use it for a good decade or two.
Every year I sort of groan about the pain of putting up a tree but I'm always glad to have done it. It really does make the dark dead of winter easier. It makes me feel connected to my dad, who loved Christmas with the wild, reckless abandon only an agnostic can have. I lost him a long time ago--28 years now--but I haven't lost this.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:11 AM on December 12, 2019 [8 favorites]
Tried to have a real tree for a year. We lived in an apartment at the time, with very low ceilings in all rooms but our bedroom, so we put it in our bedroom. It smelled lovely. But the next year I developed an allergy anytime I worked in our yard too close to pine trees, so we decided we'd get a fake.
It was the last flocked white tree at Lowes, the display tree, and I had to drag it home in three different grocery bags, at which point I realized it was too tall for our ceilings. It was beautiful, but the flocking shed everywhere even worse than pine needles. The wired lights eventually quit working. I'm currently trying to freecycle it.
This year bought a $30 turquoise tree from walmart (price has gone up a bit, but they also have it in purple) and damn do I love the kitschy look of it from the street. We call Christmas "Kitschmas" in our house, being more-or-less agnostic Jews. Everything we love about Christmas is Pagan, anyway, including this. It's not the most high quality tree and needed some extra support to hold up our ridiculous rainbow topper, but it's just beautiful and I hope to use it for a good decade or two.
Every year I sort of groan about the pain of putting up a tree but I'm always glad to have done it. It really does make the dark dead of winter easier. It makes me feel connected to my dad, who loved Christmas with the wild, reckless abandon only an agnostic can have. I lost him a long time ago--28 years now--but I haven't lost this.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:11 AM on December 12, 2019 [8 favorites]
PhoB, that is a glorious tree!
posted by ellieBOA at 7:47 AM on December 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by ellieBOA at 7:47 AM on December 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm in Portugal right now and I don't know that I've seen one real tree; they range from faux-piney (hotels, restaurants) to metal conical sculptures with lights on them (in the plazas). Some of those are big enough to walk through. Lit up, they are actually rather lovely. I don't know if many people have them in their homes; all I have to go on are Christmas ads on TV which are mostly concerned with portraying happy families gathered around a giant cod feast. But since I don't see any tree lots I am thinking people who have them buy artificial ones.
posted by emjaybee at 3:16 PM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by emjaybee at 3:16 PM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
I couldn't bear for my family to throw out the tree from our childhood, when my family bought a bigger fake tree, so I adopted it when I moved out. I'm guessing it's provenance is 80s, possibly 70s, judging by the fashions of the children on the box, and the old price tag. It's at least 20 years old by now, which I figure is pretty good going for keeping it out of landfill.
My husband's family tradition is a bit wilder. My mother-in-law thinks trees are pagan idolatrous symbols (and let's not get started on Santa Claus) and therefore, banned them. So, when the kids were a bit older and could drive the farm ute (pick up truck) they waited until the parents were in bed, drove out into the surrounding country side, cut a tree under the cover of darkness and brought it back and decorated it so that it would be there for Christmas day. This became a family tradition.
I participated in this tradition last year, and it struck me as sad when the day was over and we were directed to get it out of the house- it's tolerated for one day only.
Meanwhile I claim January 6 (Epiphany and also Orthodox Christmas) as the day I take down my Christmas decorations.
posted by freethefeet at 9:23 PM on December 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
My husband's family tradition is a bit wilder. My mother-in-law thinks trees are pagan idolatrous symbols (and let's not get started on Santa Claus) and therefore, banned them. So, when the kids were a bit older and could drive the farm ute (pick up truck) they waited until the parents were in bed, drove out into the surrounding country side, cut a tree under the cover of darkness and brought it back and decorated it so that it would be there for Christmas day. This became a family tradition.
I participated in this tradition last year, and it struck me as sad when the day was over and we were directed to get it out of the house- it's tolerated for one day only.
Meanwhile I claim January 6 (Epiphany and also Orthodox Christmas) as the day I take down my Christmas decorations.
posted by freethefeet at 9:23 PM on December 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
Does anyone actually use pine trees as Christmas trees?
In DC you can get a Virginia pine, pretty much guaranteed to have traveled the shortest distance of any available tree. When I was a kid in Oklahoma we had a few different pine trees, including a couple live trees we planted in the yard after Christmas. One thrived, and one … survived for a while.
Personally I like the look of a Douglas fir, but they’re all trucked in from the other side of the continental divide so both the literal and environmental costs are high. I’d love to have a spruce with candles like I saw in Germany, but I like having a roof over my head more than I could tolerate that risk.
Fraser firs grow well in southern Virginia and North Carolina so that’s what we’ve been getting for a few years.
posted by fedward at 8:13 AM on December 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
In DC you can get a Virginia pine, pretty much guaranteed to have traveled the shortest distance of any available tree. When I was a kid in Oklahoma we had a few different pine trees, including a couple live trees we planted in the yard after Christmas. One thrived, and one … survived for a while.
Personally I like the look of a Douglas fir, but they’re all trucked in from the other side of the continental divide so both the literal and environmental costs are high. I’d love to have a spruce with candles like I saw in Germany, but I like having a roof over my head more than I could tolerate that risk.
Fraser firs grow well in southern Virginia and North Carolina so that’s what we’ve been getting for a few years.
posted by fedward at 8:13 AM on December 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by No Robots at 11:27 AM on December 10, 2019 [11 favorites]