If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog you must have disagreed with something or maybe more strongly taken exception or offense to something. In this week’s post, maybe I can pick up everyone else.
Christmases were great when I was kid. It was by far my favorite holiday. I couldn’t wait for my mom to put up the same crappy artificial tree every year. It consisted of a broomstick like trunk with holes drilled to support the “branches”. The branches consisted of twisted No. 9 wire with plastic pine needles that I guess may be best described as like bristles in a brush. The ends had a cluster of bristles. The branches and twigs looked like spiral pipe cleaners.
“It’s like martinis. A couple at a time is perfect. Twenty is a little messy and painful.”
We were able to pile enough tinsel rope and ornaments on it to make it look respectable. In a way it was better than most trees, real or fake because we had lots of one-off ornaments made by us kids, or given as gifts for this or that. There were almost no box collections of glass balls, which typically broke one by one as we played football on our knees in the living room. My knees burn and back hurts just thinking about it. This was the football version of Nerf basketball. Somebody would inevitably get tackled into the tree sending ornaments flying. It wasn’t a good time until something broke or mom came tromping in with the wooden spoon.
Well that burned off as the years passed and the holiday break just became an over-welcome break from school and time to play holiday basketball tournaments in high school. In college I had a chance to get together with friends for more robust celebration. Now as an old man, it’s a nice break to get a reprieve from email and fire fighting and a time to catch up and actually take a couple days off for real. The only downside is we have to drive to my mom’s with a house full of siblings, their kids and extended family. It isn’t as though I don’t like people in my family. I just don’t like being trapped in a relatively small house with all of them at once. It’s like martinis. A couple at a time is perfect. Twenty is a little messy and painful. But this is the greatest thing in the world for Mom so it’s worth it.
We get a Christmas tree for our office every year. At one point the clean up crew got fed up with the needles so we converted to a fake tree. Now we’re back to real trees probably because we now have a hardwood floor rather than crappy carpet, so cleanup’s a breeze, I think.
This year our tree arrived and I thought, wow what a spectacular tree. I spend many hours, many, many hours trying to grow trees like that on my wooded lot. Growing trees on my lot is like fish fry making it to spawning age. Only about 2% of them make it without getting mowed off by 100 pound rodents others call whitetail deer. I have a hell of a time getting the trees above munching height. It’s difficult to grow tall trees when they get munched off every year. An electric fence and individual fence barriers are installed for protection. I’m sure my neighbors think I’m a whack job but we know them quite well and they know I don’t have horns and a pointy tail.
Then once trees get above munching height they become targets for the damn bucks that do their antler scraping on them and in probably two minutes they can destroy a beautiful 5 year old tree. I usually refer to hunting as killing defenseless animals, per my former boss’s definition, but at my house it’s pest eradication. When I was a kid I hunted all the time for everything that was fair game, but now I beg my neighbor to eradicate the varmints but he’s too sportsman like – too much of a hunter. It has to be a clean shot, the right size varmint, the right gender and all that kind of crap. Just take them out. I’ll pay the butcher.
So at Christmastime people are out chopping down perfect trees that I’m trying to grow. Our office tree like most others is blocking views to outdoors in our office and lights are deployed up the wazoo. It (was) surrounded by many frivolous gifts wrapped in goofy wrapping paper or fancy bags that when burned only are half consumed as the rest is some combination of non-combustible clay and other paint residue (not that I’ve tried this). All this flies in the face of LEED and sustainability.
For the office Christmas party, we are encouraged to get $10-15 gifts for a random gift exchange. Guys this is the rule: 12-packs of damn good beer only.
So my green solution is this: Chip in for a reusable keg (otherwise known as half barrels in this goofy state) of damn good beer. We drink our limit of 24 ounces with our reusable glasses (real glass ones). Use one of the potted plants for the Christmas tree. At my house, we use our fig tree and in fact, I liked it so much last year, we left the lights (LED of course) installed all year. The lights are on a timer. The wrapping paper for the keg can be one reusable bow used annually. We don’t need no stinking wrapping paper. The women can either partake in the beer consumption, get a box of wine or even a barrel, or a bulk tank of floral hand lotion. Whatever it takes; just no cluttery knickknacks.
The tree growers can bring their skills to my house. I would gladly pay $30-$50 a pop for these perfect trees that are currently being massacred and I’m not talking about buying the big trees. Plant seedlings and tend them until they get above munching and scraping size.
Now that my friends, is a sustainable Christmas.
Tidbits
After our tree was installed in the office this year, I asked where are the candy canes? Get some candy canes so I can get my sugar fix. So Deb, our receptionist kindly populated the tree with candy canes. I ask, why can’t somebody patent a candy cane wrapper that is easy to remove. Getting the wrapper off a candy cane is like skinning a frozen earth worm. After a while of biting and clawing at it, just eat the whole thing. Same thing goes for compact disc wrappers. Good grief, what is it about these things? It says lift here but that peels off a tiny sliver of super sticky tape. So you have to work for five minutes to get the thing open. Think of the lost GDP.
