We have put up our Chinese made Christmas tree with our Chinese made ornaments and Chinese made lights dressing it up real fine. Now we'll put some Chinese made Christmas stuff under it and settle back for a good old Michigan Christmas. What in the hell did people do for Christmas before the Chinese jumped in? Frankincense?
This is the first year for us to use what reader SCOT calls a fake representation of a cultural symbol, (that is, a fake Christmas tree) and we struggled with the proprieties. Is it better to have for ten years, a tree made out of petroleum from China than go out and chop down a living specimen at the local tree farm? On general principles of tradition, it should be a real tree.
And, after all, the real trees wouldn't even exist but for the fact that someone planted them in the hopes of someone else cutting them down a few years hence. Then, in most places, the real trees wind up in a landfill where they stay for sixteen million years or something waiting for a weevil to find them and chew them up. Our local nursery will gladly take them back for compost, which they then use for growing more Christmas trees. Soon there will be a new baby in our family. Then we can go through the debate about reusable versus plastic diapers.
2 comments:
The best option is a 'living tree'. One that is balled/burlapped. You can go with pines (red, white, scotch) or firs or spruce. Then, when you pull the tree out, plant it in the yard. Or, the neighbor's yard. As for the ornaments and things a'hangin'....homemade things are the best. And, making them helps keep the old and young alike out of trouble otherwheres.
Actually, we tried to do that one year. Here are some drawbacks:
1. After the Christmas season, the ground is frozen solid, but the tree has been in the house and has begun to grow again. (You can't leave a hole in the ground all winter because someone will fall in it and bust something. )
2. It costs about $200 for a bundled tree which weighs a lot, and must be wrestled in and out of the house.
3. We would now have about 25 trees in our backyard which measures 85' by 60'.
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