Tradition of live Christmas trees continues

I was cruising through an antique mall recently and stopped to look at a shiny aluminum 1960s-era tabletop tree, which was a good example of a trend that came, went and then came back again. The trees, in their original boxes and in very good shape, are expensive now. A throwback to the mid-century modern style that, if the Crate and Barrel and Restoration Hardware catalogs are to be believed, is the hottest new look. My family just made the annual trip to Green Bluff to cut our own tree. We’ve been in Spokane for 10 years now and have only missed the trip one time. (And, it’s worth noting, the tree we purchased from the lot on the corner of a busy arterial that year died two weeks before Christmas and had to be undecorated, taken down and replaced in the thick of the holiday craziness. But that’s another story…) I suppose there are some who would argue that cutting a live tree to be used as a decoration and then discarded is destructive and wasteful. But by purchasing a tree that was grown in the area, we help keep a grower - a neighbor or even a co-worker - in business. It’s a very basic “buy local” idea. And, after the tree comes down it is recycled - ground into mulch - so it serves a useful purpose. Compared to the carbon footprint of an artificial tree, made from petroleum products, wrapped in plastic and packaged in cardboard before being shipped across the sea to be trucked across the country, a fresh-tree cut from a local farm is very green. In every sense. Christmas tree farms deal in a renewable resource. New trees are always being planted to replace those that have been cut down. Ideally, the trees would be grown without the heavy use of pesticides and with responsible water use. A live, or balled-root tree, is the greenest of all options but for those of us living on small city lots, planting a new tree each year is not an option. I have a friend who eschews a tree in any form and instead decorates a twiggy limb. Each year she searches for and selects a fallen limb. She watches what her neighbors trim from their trees. She trolls the city parks and has been known to pull over and knock on doors. When she finds a limb that can be “planted” in a big urn she trims it to the perfect shape, twines tiny white lights around the branches and then decorates it with delicate handmade blown-glass heirloom ornaments. It is beautiful. There are no needles to clean up. No watering. No big tree to haul through the front door at the end of the season. After Christmas she breaks the limb into small pieces and burns it in the fireplace I’ve often thought about trying that in my own home but that’s not the tradition my children have grown up with and look forward to each year. So, no shiny silver vintage trees for us. No elegant bare branches. And definitely no artificial tree. We continue to make a trip to the tree farms nestled between apple and apricot orchards at Green Bluff. We compare trees, noting bare spots and crooked trunks and pick one that will fit in the corner of the living room in our cottage near the park. And at the beginning of the new year the tree comes down and goes on to its new life. Just like the rest of us.