Our beauty of a real Christmas tree had been up since the day after Thanksgiving and was somehow still going strong despite not having been watered since Jesus’s birthday.
Once the new year passed, we were absolutely ready for the tree to come down. All the ornaments got packed away first, then it was a tree with just lights for a few days (or weeks). Eventually, the lights came down and we just had a plain pine tree hanging out in our living room.
The City’s Christmas tree recycling program (which collected over 19,000 trees last year) did not start until January 3rd and ran through January 21st, which became our deadline of when the tree had to be down.
But the tree still looked so fantastic! We weren’t ready to haul it to be chipped into mulch just yet!
You still got a whiff of pine scent when you walked by just like the day we brought it home, and anyone who came over immediately thought we still had our artificial tree up.
Nope, it’s real and yes, we are kind of lazy.
Just like the pumpkin that stayed around for a long time post-Thanksgiving, maybe this tree could have become a Valentines tree?! Sadly, not.
Two days before the deadline, the tree came down and was loaded into my car.
One day before the deadline, I brought it over to Lincoln Park and added it to the pile of trees. Luckily our tree was not the only one there.
As I rolled up my car window, I waved bye to our lovely tree laying in a pile of other wet, muddy trees.
Soon they will become mulch and be spread onto people’s gardens and lawns come spring.
waste not want not 