O (dead) Christmas Tree, O (dead) Christmas Tree
Teaching yet another generation to regard nature as disposable
It was January 2 when I’d already caught sight of my neighborhood’s most clearcut (pun very much intended) sign that Santa season is over: Christmas trees lying discarded on the sidewalk.
Those firs, pines, spruces, cypresses, and cedars were leaning almost upright just a few weeks ago with price tags dangling from their branches. Now they lie horizontal — a few tenacious strands of tinsel clinging to the razor-sharp needles.
The blinking lights go back in the hallway closet and the ornaments get stored under the bed in the guest room long before January’s credit card bills arrive.
Your most recent Christmas tree is already, as they say, history.
No longer will it hide brightly wrapped boxes of consumer electronics or display an impaled blonde angel at its apex. Planted and fattened solely for the kill, that doomed tree will now probably serve as a novel target for local dogs on the stroll.
Before anyone dismisses this post as the work of a Scrooge, please take a second to contemplate how corporate conditioning coerces people to look at trees and only see lumber and profits — as the sound of chainsaws echoes in their clouded heads.
Do we really wanna teach yet another generation to regard nature as a disposable commodity?
It may not be too late to once again recognize trees as kindred spirits — fellow travelers if you will — with eons of wisdom from which we have so much more to learn.
Why not find out?
Some varieties are compostable! I did not get a tree, but I did decorate my former husband’s tree for him and some of my daughters. I have been composting in one of my daughter’s back yard so I looked up the fir variety and the needles are compostable. You can also make pine needle tea from the needles. 
On one hand, the trees are a crop; planted, cared for and harvested to yield a living for the tree farmer.
On the other, I hate to see them wind up in a landfill. Pine trees contain a large amount of energy that could be used for fuel in some way. The wife and I have gone the artificial route for no other reason than convenience and clean up.