Dear Maggie,

Oh, I hope you can help! I’m at my wit’s end. It’s our first Christmas as a married couple, and my husband wants a real tree. I’ve used artificial for a long time, now, due to my concerns about the environment. The number of trees cut down each year only to be decorated and lit up as they slowly die, is astounding, and issues of deforestation and the resulting climate change are global and urgent.

My husband knew my views about the environment long before we married. He’s been very good about recycling, and buying organic products, not littering and keeping the lights off when not in use. He even agreed that our new car would be a hybrid. But he’s not budging on this Christmas tree issue. He says the best part of his childhood Christmas memories was trudging into the forest with his grandpa and choosing a tree, cutting it down and bringing it home. How can I enjoy the holidays if I have to look at a living thing that has been murdered just so we can hang shiny baubles on it?

I don’t know why he won’t budge on this, but it’s threatening to ruin our first Christmas as a married couple, and I don’t want that to happen. But I’m not going to let it go, either. Please help!

Signed,

Tree Hugger

Dear Tree Hugger,

Do you sit and weep at the dinner table, over the murder of the innocent, cruelly beheaded broccoli? Do you shudder in grief over the severed ears of the sweet corn when it’s stacked on a platter in the summer?

Listen, I’m against deforestation too. But buying a Christmas tree isn’t deforestation, because they are a crop grown by a farmer for the purpose of the winter harvest. The trees that don’t sell and get too big to sell, will be chopped down and used for mulch, not allowed grow and reforest the planet. This is a crop. Like oats or potatoes or beans. Would you protest against a wheat farmer harvesting his fields in the fall? The farmer will plant new trees for every one harvested. So there will usually be a consistent number of trees from one year to the next on that tree farm, giving off a consistent amount of oxygen, filtering the air in a consistent manner. Not only that, but by buying his crop, you’re helping your local tree farmer, and by extension, the local economy.

Now, what are you supporting when you buy an artificial tree? The oil industry, mostly. Anything plastic is petroleum based. Yes, you use it year after year, but when you’re done with it, where does it go? It takes that stuff centuries to decompose. Do you really think that’s healthier for the planet in the long run?