By, Uwe Paschen.
The Christmas tree or the Solstice Tree?
For millennia’s now trees have been worshiped by many cultures as being mystical, even magical and gifted with great powers. The Germanic Tribes and the Scandinavian Tribes gave us the tradition of the decorated tree at solstice, nowadays better known as Christmas tree.
Some 2000 years ago though, the Fir tree was decorated with Fruits and Straw ornaments as well as religious symbols referring to Odin who is also the ancestor of Father Christmas as Agios Nikolaos, ("victory of the people") is the common name for Nicholas of Myra.) Is the ancestor of Saint Nicolas.
The Decorations of the Tree was latter adapted to Christmas, and even though many Christian did resist it at first, since it is a Pagan symbol and tradition, it did make a break through with Martin Luther in the 16th century in Germany. Latter in the 19th Century it was introduced in Briton as well as in the Americas. Nowadays around the World. Even here, in Japan the Christmas tree is to be fund everywhere.
However today a great number of them are plastic trees made to 68% in China and 27% in the USA and Canada, The German still swear by the real tree and have adopted a new custom by buying live trees and planting those right after Christmas in the Garden or the Wood lot near by.
Now there are also a great number of Tree Farms that grow trees as others do grow Pigs for slotter. Some see this as a good thing and others find it environmentally unfriendly. It is actually rather difficult to make up once mind on what is and what is not good for the environment, since we are being bombarded with facts and figures from all directions.
Some of those so called facts are merely made up by some Sales Persons or even businesses at times, however there are some sound sites and real research lead by Universities and independent associations that have looked in to it rather seriously, such as the Christmas Tree Association for instance, http://www.christmastree.org/faketrees.cfm
Now, it does seem that planting a tree would be by far the best one could do for the environment. Secondly, would be the real cut tree grown by certified wood loots that do not harm the forest as such and last of course the plastic tree since it is made with PVC and originates from Petrol based products that do really harm our environment.
Same does go for the ornaments and lights. Opting for the environment would require straw and natural ornaments rather then plastic once or synthetic ornaments. The old way seems to be best here, Fruits and Straw ornaments.
Lights, well if you have to have them, less is off course better and energy saving once would be grand, not only do they help the environment, but they also save a lot of money on the electrical bill and those keep going up as we all know to well.
Now, if you opt for the real environmental choice then you leave the hole tree thing and donate a tree to be planted in the spring in your country or some where else, that would have the greatest positive impact of all. http://www.environmentalmediafund.org/Home.aspx
Now, as you may decorate your tree for Christmas, after all. Do remember some facts in honour of that tree, such as.: In a single Year a tree processes 1,254,000.00 KCall/M2 of this the tree uses 1,199 KCall/M2 for its own grows, not to much in fact, yet 55% of that energy the Tree uses for respiration, meaning filtering the air, removing or absorbing CO2 and rejecting Oxygen. That is a lot by any standard.
So show some respect to our friends the tree this season and maybe even plant one your self in gesture of being grateful for all they do for us CO2 Producer and Oxygen users on Earth. Happy Holidays.
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