Fake Tree News

It happens every year.

Christmas approaches, and families that believe in that sort of thing turn their attention to obtaining and putting up a Christmas Tree.

We’ve all seen the same movie as it plays out from here: The Fam loads up in the Fam Mobile, armed with an axe. Happily, they head for the hills, looking for that Perfect Tree to kill.

Yes, it MUST be perfect, just the right size and shape and with certainty that it’ll fit in that corner of the house where it always goes.

So, usually after paying The Tree Farm Man for the privilege of slaying one of his Tree Kids, the lucky Fam member wields the axe -- or saw or chainsaw -- and the Fam claims its annual victim, er, I mean beloved Christmas Tree.

Tying it to the top of the car, the Fam can be seen heading back to town, everyone smiling and planning the erection and decoration of The Tree.

It’s like a scene from The Hallmark Channel, known for running its insipid made-for-TV Christmas movies year round (“A Christmas to Remember, Part 912”).

Other people aren’t so lucky.

They don’t have access to the hills or mountains or even a Tree Farm near town. They’re often left with the Strip Mall Christmas Tree Seller to pick out a tree many others have already picked over and rejected.

Ugh…

But, whatever. People obtain a tree -- once vibrant and living -- take its corpse home and begin hanging the colorful balls and popcorn chains and bubble lights to make it “Christmas festive.”

Yes, NOW the house has that real Christmas atmosphere that spurs our fantasies toward sugar-heavy Christmas snacks, coma-inducing Christmas music and -- best of all -- the gaily-wrapped wanted (and unwanted) presents slowly accumulating under the shelter of The Tree.

And, maybe a week or so after Christmas -- in most homes -- it’s time for The Tree to go bye-bye.

Once the Absolute Christmas Center of Attention, The Tree has performed its function and is now ready for ... the trash.

Uh huh. That Tree that was once so special and personified The Holiday is suddenly persona non gratis.

And that’s when you see them: Discarded Trees piled next to the curb up and down city streets, ready for The Trashman to haul them away. Dried-out shells of their former glory, they lie there with remnants of silver tinsel fluttering in the cold breeze.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Several years ago, we decided that destroying a Tree every year was not that great of an idea.

So we bought an artificial one. And it has so much going for it: Looks real, doesn’t need watering, won’t dry out and catch the house on fire, no needles to constantly pick up, and there’s NO GUILT because you don’t throw it away like garbage.

Instead, you put it back in its box -- and it’s waiting there faithfully when next Christmas rolls around.

Look: You’re probably going to do what you always do at Christmas, and that’s really fine. It's not like we’re running out of trees to kill any time soon.

All I am saying is: Consider going ARTIFICIAL this year.

And Give Trees a Chance.