Real or fake?

One of the things I may never get used to is Christmas in the summer. It just doesn’t feel right. I know I say this every year (since I’ve lived in Argentina), but I may very well keep saying it until (if) we move up to the northern hemisphere, where the seasons are the same ones I grew up with.

I always have a general feeling of weirdness during the hot and humid month of December in Buenos Aires, where summer technically begins on the 21st but really feels like it started back in November (and I just don’t associate Christmas with heat). The fact that it’s so hot means that “real” Christmas trees are out of the question. Everyone down here has an artificial tree.

Which leads me to the question I ask myself every year, as I miss the smell of a real Noble fir in the living room: how un-eco is a real tree? Luckily, I don’t have the moral dilemma down here of having to choose between real or fake (that decision was already made for me, though we won’t have a tree of any kind in our apartment this year).

Still, it’s on my mind. One of my favorite memories of Christmas as a child is the smell of that tree whenever I walked into the house during the holiday season.

My argument is always that the trees that are harvested for the holidays are farmed just for that purpose. Generally, people aren’t barging into natural forests and sawing down pines for the holidays. And these are all trees that, if it weren’t for the American custom of having a real Christmas tree, wouldn’t be planted at all. So, in my perspective, thanks to the holiday tree industry, there’s all these extra trees being planted each year that are doing their turn in producing oxygen, absorbing carbon dioxide, absorbing pollutants such as carbon monoxide, and all those other great things that trees naturally do (there’s a cute little slide show on the importance of tree planting on About.com).

Anyway, is that really good enough? Or should we stop this altogether?

There’s a great article at Scripps News that reminds us that artificial trees do not biodegrade. Which we all knew, but of course…they last for years, but not forever, and at some point someone’s going to throw them out. Most fake trees are also produced in China, so the whole idea of buying locally is out of the question. They are generally made of PVC and, contrary to common belief, are apparently not fireproof.

The Scripps News author also states that “In 2008, 45 million new Christmas trees were planted in tree farms across America.” That’s WAY more than I would ever have guessed, and of course those 45 million trees are dedicated to doing all that good stuff I mentioned earlier. In another article, the author states that “just one acre of Christmas trees produces enough oxygen to support eighteen people.” Way to go, trees!

The National Christmas Tree Association has a full website devoted to the topic of natural trees, including a myth busters page that hopes to dispel concerns regarding the purchase of “real” trees. You can take that all with a grain of salt, but it’s still pretty much the same information I found all over the rest of the internet. And a lot of it involves some basic common sense as well.

So anyway, if I could choose between fake or real, I’d definitely go with real, though the best options probably include:

• Decorating an existing potted tree or plant in the home
• Buying a tree with roots and planting it after the holidays
• Renting a traditional Christmas tree ($135 USD for a 6-7 foot tree)
• Composting a real tree after the holidays are over 
• Grinding up the tree in a chipper and use the chips as mulch in the garden

If you’re reading this in the northern hemisphere and have a “real” tree at home for the holidays, enjoy it! And please find some way to recycle or re-use it once January 1st comes around.