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The Christmas Tree Dilemma
This tree won't fit in our back yard.
It's not going in the yard, Russ. It's going in the living room.
I give you the Griswold family Christmas tree.
Lotta sap in here! Mmmm... Looks great! Little full, lotta sap.
Russ, we checked every bulb, didn't we?
Sure, Dad.
Hmm... Maybe we ought to just go up there and check...
Oh, woo. Look at the time. I gotta get to bed. I still gotta brush my teeth, feed the hog, still got some homework to do, still got those bills to pay, wash the car...
I’m sure most everyone reading this recognizes the quotes above from one of the Holiday Classics, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. If you just switch around some of the names you could have easily heard the same quotes at my house the past few years as I worked on my exterior and interior illumination. I am very lucky that my house has a vaulted ceiling which has allowed me to have Christmas Trees ranging from 11.5 – 13.5 feet tall (see links at the end for photo galleries of Christmas past and present.
The illumination, the killing of trees so they could be in my house for 30+ days, the driving around town and using gasoline just to look at other people using electricity for illumination…these things all of sudden seemed to be in contrast with the fact that I have become a born again environmentalist. What was I to do? Not get a live tree for the inside of my house? Stop putting up lights? These are things that I have contemplated the past few month, but I have come to a place that allows me to do my over the top decorating without having to hurt the planet in the process:
Unlike artificial trees, Real Christmas Trees are renewable and recyclable, However, many people still perceive cutting trees down as bad for the environment and that is not the case. Natural Christmas Trees no longer come from the forest. They are grown on farms throughout North America
-Jill O’Donnell, Michigan State, Statewide Christmas Tree ICM Educator
The Daily News, Greenville, MI
My Tree
I suppose if I was really Clark Griswald I would venture into the forest and cut my own tree down…but that isn’t me, I’m just not that adventurous. According to the National Christmas Tree Association (yes this is a real association), 98% of Christmas Trees are grown on farms. Each year there are between 25 and 30 million Christmas trees sold, while the United States has over 446 million Christmas Trees growing on farms. This ratio is maintained with an industry standard of planting 3 trees each year to every one that is cut down. These statistics give me that jolly holiday spirit and make me feel a bit better about having a tree cut down for my home.
Now just like any other farming operations, there are the questions of how the crop is raised. Does the farm use lots of pesticides and other chemicals that may run off into the rivers? Is growing Christmas Trees the best use of the land, or could a more productive crop be grown in its place. I have no idea where I can find an “organically” raised Christmas tree for my home, but if anyone has a suggestion, I would love to hear it, please place it in the comments! I did read on the NCTA’s website that most Christmas Trees are grown on soil that doesn’t support other crops.
So this year, my tree is again a live tree. It came from Michigan (which I know is counter to my locavore ways) and it stands 11.5 feet high…as I like to say, in a rough economy we had to cut back somewhere.
Decorating the tree
When you have a big tree it takes a lot to decorate it, particularly in the lighting of it. In the past I have had up to 1,500 lights in the tree. My electric bill would sky rocket in December because of these lights and my exterior illumination. In past years I had considered LED lights for the tree in order to reduce both the impact on the environment and my electricity bill, but they are so freaking expensive. At least that is what I thought.
Being an accountant I thought I should figure out the real cost difference. Here are the assumptions / factors that I considered:
- I typically have to replace 30% of my interior Christmas lights each year because of fuse issues, light bulb issues, or other mysterious reasons that half a strand will stop working.
- I calculated my average $ / Killowatt hour that I pay on my utility bill for the period of May 4 to October 30.
- My rate includes a premium of 2.3% that I pay to have all of my energy come from renewal resources (e.g. wind energy, solar energy, etc), I backed this out of the analysis.
- I have a timer on my lights. I will run the LED for 18 hours a day because there is no concern of overheating, I used to run the regular lights for 14 hours a day
- LED lights are brighter. I estimate I would have put 1,500 regular lights into the tree this year, but I only put in 950 LED lights.
- For fun I put in a comparison to the old C-7 bulbs which are beautiful but real energy drains.
Based on these costs, it will take 4 years for LED lights to breakeven. That makes it seem like a pretty easy decision to me. I will 100% convert to LED next year for my exterior illumination. Now I know some of you may take exception to my 30% replacement cost on mini-lights, but that is what I averaged the past few years. I pulled my mini lights out yesterday and found over 50% of them needed replacement, but I didn’t want to bias my analysis. In talking to a lot of friends they have had a similar experience this year. Maybe it just got too hot or cold in the attic where the lights were stored this past year.
Here is a link to a spreadsheet I made to do this calculation. You can create your own estimate by changing the Killowatt’s / hour charge, how many strands you bought, how much you estimate your replacement costs to be, how many hours a day you are going to run the lights, and how many days you plan to keep them on.
Tree Removal
My favorite part of the experience is getting the tree out of the house, but this is again another part of having a live tree that is good for the environment. You can see some pictures of this process in the links below. With trees the size I have had the past few years, I needed a chainsaw to break it down so it would fit out my front door!
When I get it outside, I do not leave it at the curb for the trash men to haul away. Instead, I break it down into pieces. I keep the stump for decoration in garden and place a small portion of the needles and branches into my compost pile for bio-diversity. I then take the rest of the tree and haul it to a park in either Marion or Hamilton County. Both have programs that turn Christmas trees into mulch for use in the parks. This helps the parks supplement the need to purchase mulch and saves the trees from ending up in a landfill.
Link to 2010 Tree Pictures
Link to 2009 Tree Pictures
Link to 2008 Tree Pictures
I hope you have a very happy and green holiday season...and don't forget about how holiday flyers, cards, and wrapping paper can help out KIB!
