Opinion: What madness befell us that we decided that bringing the forest into our homes was the focus of the season?

If you showed up at someone’s door in July with nine feet of evergreen, they wouldn’t let you in. Print Hang Tags

But come December, you’re a hero! A giant plume of fir or pine that eats up half the living room is the honoured guest of winter. It may represent a clear and present danger for fire — plus there’s a good chance that the cat or a grandchild may topple that bejewelled wonder — but none of that matters. This indoor tree is essential.

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How did this happen? What madness befell us that we decided that bringing the forest into our homes was the focus of the season?

Well, witchcraft plays a role. According to historians, people long ago believed that hanging evergreen boughs in their homes would ward off evil spirits. The big deal here is that the foliage had to be evergreen. As days became shorter and foliage fell, the evergreen represented hope in the dead of winter, that the sun god would return. Celts and Vikings thought evergreens symbolized ever-lasting life. Today, we recognize that a dying fir tree in the house symbolizes ever-lasting vacuuming. Well, at least until Valentine’s Day.

One cold, clear night back in 16th-century Germany, Protestant theologian Martin Luther was inspired by the stars and had the idea of wiring candles onto his Christmas tree. Thus is born the Christmas tradition of cursing at strings of knotted lights. Henceforth, ornamented trees become associated with Dec. 25. Turns out, it was a regional thing. America, with its fundamentalist roots, didn’t take so kindly to blinged out Christmas trees.

Until late in the 19th century, Christmas decorations were considered a “pagan mockery”. Massachusetts made it a penal offence to observe Christmas in any way other than attending a church service. There were fines for displaying decorations. Pennsylvania Germans were undeterred. Christmas trees were part of their tradition and they kept that alive in their new country. Nevertheless, right up into the 1840s, Christmas trees were regarded suspiciously in the U.S. as pagan symbols.

The story of how Queen Victoria’s German husband introduced the Christmas tree to Britain is well known. In 1846, a sketch showing the royal family gathered around a decorated tree placed atop a table appeared in the Illustrated London News. Given Victoria’s popularity, this image was like an Instagram sensation. The girl had followers.

By the time the idea had gained a foothold in America, the notion of a table-top tree had been supplanted by the idea of a tree that reached the ceiling.

Today, there are 1,364 Christmas tree farms in Canada, with Ontario having the most and B.C. taking second place. According to the 2021 Census of Agriculture, there are 50,803 acres of land under cultivation with trees destined for a living room. Canada harvests 2.4 million trees each year, with the bulk of them going to Massachusetts — apparently well-recovered from their restrictive covenants on heathen display — New York, New Jersey and Michigan. California, however, gets almost all of its trees from Oregon.

Christmas tree costs are up by about 15 per cent from last year. The same factors that are affecting the price of lettuce and soap are affecting tree farmers. Depending on the species of tree, you’ll part with between $10 to $20 a foot. Still, it’s a lucrative business, generating $163.5 million in cash receipts in 2021.

Greenpeace says that in order to contain its carbon footprint, you have to use your artificial tree for 20 years. If you’re expecting heated debate on the topic of Fake-mas trees versus farmed trees, ward off your personal evil spirits with some evergreen boughs over the table. Earbuds help, too.

Of the dozens of guesses as to what my “bow” was made of, only two people got it right. It’s a dried tomato vine with a dash of spray paint and glitter.

Jane Macdougall is a freelance writer and former National Post columnist who lives in Vancouver. She will be writing on The Bookless Club every Saturday online and in The Vancouver Sun. For more of what Jane’s up to, check out her website, janemacdougall.com

Fake or real? How do you roll on the tree issue?

Send your answers by email text, not an attachment, in 100 words or less, along with your full name to Jane at thebooklessclub@gmail.com. We will print some next week in this space.

Where do you sit on the wrapping spectrum? How does your family handle this seasonal chore. Are you making earth-friendly changes?

Regarding the wrapping on your gift, I thought perhaps it was hemp at first, but upon closer examination, my official guess is that you used the stalks from your tomato plants.

• We at the Marquis household, have made a new policy — that wrapping of gifts may only occur in regular household containers. So, over the years, our wrappings have ranged from the weird (a vacuum part) to the wonderful (tablecloths and napkins). Other interesting choices have been pillow cases, clean paint cans, random wood pieces, old cereal boxes, and other such available sundry. It has definitely made the traditional gift wrapping very humorous, as we all compete to wrap our gifts in the most non-conventional way. Best of all, we have reduced our waste to negligible, which was always our intention. We challenge your readers to join us, in the strangest Christmas wrap contest. It’s easy to start — your own newspaper, reused once again, with paint stamps or drawings.

• Our son surprised us with an appeal in our Messenger family chat: “This Christmas please consider using recyclable paper like newspaper to wrap presents. Not elegant, but we are saving the planet and money as well.” His wife followed up his message: “We have lots of used wrapping paper in our attic, free for everyone!” Sounded like what we did the other year — carefully unwrapping our birthday presents so that the wrappers could be used for everyone’s presents on their birthday. For all eight family members, we succeeded in using the same wrappers from the first birthday on March 16 to the last on Dec. 1.

• In my family, we have zero garbage at Christmas. Some years ago, I bought several different lengths of Christmas fabrics. I made these up into about 20 different-sized bags for each member of the family, and identified each person’s with a different coloured drawstring cord. The sight under the tree is a wonderful display of colours, and after the presents are all opened the bags get returned to the correct owner ready for next year.

• The visual of 45,000 hockey rinks covered with Christmas wrap is disturbing to me. Ideally, only recyclable wrapping paper should be available to consumers. For many years, I have only used reusable cloth drawstring gift bags of various sizes. Most of these cloth bags were freebies from gas fill-ups, saved many years ago, or purchased cheaply from local thrift stores. I am proud of my family for adopting this earth-friendly habit of not contributing to the seasonal problem of discarded gift wrap.

• Gift wrapping in our family when I was a child involved lots of recycled gift-wrapping paper. My mother’s side of the family celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve with a delicious turkey dinner and lots of presents beautifully wrapped. When we said “good night” we took all our presents and the used wrapping paper home with us. On Christmas Day, we celebrated with my father’s side of the family and wrapped their presents in the used paper from the night before. My father’s sister, my aunt, would take the used wrapping paper home with her to wrap presents for my uncle’s side of the family to celebrate on Boxing Day. It was always fun the next year to “recognize” paper from the previous Christmas. Today, our family uses cloth gift bags — gifts from Esso gas stations many years ago, and ones made by me from beautiful Christmas fabric. They too are recycled many times.

• For years, our extended family has used cloth bags. I made many sizes in a large variety of wonderful Christmas fabrics that look beautiful and as varied as paper-wrapped. We also reuse fabric tags so everyone knows when opening a gift, they read the tag, and pass it to me for safekeeping before opening the bag. This process means one can easily wrap and label a gift in under a minute. They look fantastic, in the long run we save money and, when Christmas is over, our recycling bin is still practically empty.

• I am an avid reuser and recycler, so I haven’t bought Christmas cards or wrapping paper for several years. I make cards from the ones I’ve received in past years. No one would recognize them since I cut and rearrange the images. I’ve saved all the wrapping paper from gifts that I’ve been given, never tossing the paper into the garbage or recycling bins. The most beautiful papers are turned into collage on boxes that I use to store Christmas decorations. This year, my nine-year-old granddaughter found my containers of paper and ribbons and used them to make outfits for her stuffed animals and dolls.

• My mother was the original recycler, using newspaper and paper bags to wrap gifts with raffia and cloth ribbons, and cutting up Christmas cards for gift tags. All of which was horribly embarrassing for a teenager in the 1970s. Homemade cloth gift bags appeared with the grandchildren and are still used to this day. When my kids were young, I invested in some good-quality gift bags, a novelty then, still lovingly preserved and utilized and a source of amusement for teenagers who now have kids of their own and employ all of the above. And let’s not forget about decorating gifts with garden bounty like your silver “bow”.

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