Green Daily

I bought a fake Christmas tree. There, I've said it. I know just horrible fake trees are. Their plastic, the miles traveled from China or Tawain it sailed before ending up in my living room are bad, bad, bad. I know all the facts but what it came down to was money.

My new fake tree will last me a number of years. It looks pretty durable and well constructed. I expect it to be with us many a holiday. The price of said tree was comparable to one real tree, an expense that I would have to incur every year. Oh, and this tree was delivered directly to my door so there was no strapping to the car roof for me.

Yet, the guilt prevails. I pretty much view the cutting of Christmas trees as a neutral event. After all, most tress come from tree farms where new crops are planted annually. Buying a live tree might actually be good for the environment as it keeps people planting. In addition, the post-Christmas tree here in New Orleans is left on the curb and it then gets carted away and dropped into the wetlands to preserve the land there. Not only am I buying unrecyclable plastic but I'm killing the wetlands single-handedly.

Ok, maybe that's a little drastic. I swear if we had a program here like Portland's Living Christmas Tree Company where a rented, living tree would be dropped off and picked up then I would jump on it. Unfortunately, my state is not so progressive. Besides, my fake tree is a "Yonkers Pine" and really does look lovely.

I've shared. What's your dirty little secret? Did you forgo the LED lights? Do you use massive amounts of wrapping paper? Do you forgo your vegetarian diet to eat ham on Christmas Day?