A Real Christmas Tree Dilemma

Christmas is stressful. It doesn?t seem to matter how much you are or aren?t doing towards the Christmas festivities, stress seems to be everywhere.

Deciding to have a Christmas tree is the tip of the Christmas tree iceberg. Should you go artificial or real? Well, artificial means that you can take it out year in and year out, but are you saving the world? Is it bad to have a real tree and then to dump it after a couple of weeks? Now there is so much awareness about the environment that most Christmas trees come from Christmas tree farms. Here the trees are always replaced, so the woodland is not being lost. Also once it is cut most councils have a recycling facility, so your tree is not just dumped. Hopefully this means that whether you opt for the real or artificial, you will not be doing any harm.

Let say that you have decided to go real. Now you have to work out what sort of tree you are going to get and where you are going to buy it from. Some trees will drop their pines more quickly than others; some trees will smell longer than others. If you have small children it may be best to choose a tree which does not drop too much, firstly you don?t want to have them eating the pines or getting stuck in their soft toys. The other problem with pine needles and children is that once the tree is coming to the end of its time and you have really had it with vacuuming cleaning the pines you will get less careful and more of your children?s toys will end up in the vacuum cleaner bag!

If you are thinking about the environment, you may want to look for a local farm where the trees are grown. In many of these farms you can actually go and choose your tree and they will cut it down for you there and then. This means that your tree is fresh so the pines should last, it means that the tree has not been sprayed with chemicals to either preserve the pines or enhance the smell, and it also means that it has not been carted around the country via trucking several trucking depots and warehouses before it gets to the outlet where you purchase it from, so your tree would have a smaller carbon footprint.

So now you have the tree, you just have to decorate it. Obviously if you have chosen your tree with care you don?t want to hide it in a mist of chemical artificial snow, you will want to respect it! If you really are interested in natural you can look over the history of tree decorations and find many which are natural and you can even make you own. Obviously instead of shop bought chocolates you can have homemade biscuit decorations, but there are also dried fruits and paper decorations which can be just as striking as anything you can buy in the shops.

Jon Kelly is a published author who writes articles on a variety of diverse subjects. This includes ideas around Christmas time and Christmas decorations. If you would like to learn about Christmas Time and Christmas decorations. Please visit http://www.greatchristmastime.com