Switching from the traditional live Christmas tree to an artificial one is not an easy choice.
My husband and I had talked about getting a fake for years, but as long as we could cut a magnificent evergreen from our neighbor's fir farm for only $20, a plastic tree in our living room seemed just about as appealing as a soy burger on the grill. Synthetic foliage didn't smell good; it was not quite the right color; and nothing you could put on it would disguise its tastelessness.Our children felt the same way. Just let their dad suggest it might be cheaper in the long run to invest in an artificial tree, and he was "Ebenezer Scrooge." Let me complain about the yearly inconvenience of scraping pine gum and needles off the floor, and I was "Mrs. Grinch."
Too bad our tree farming neighbor's six sons eventually grew up, went to college, married and moved away, taking with them the financial need for the Christmas tree enterprise, as well as its main source of labor.
The last year the farm was open, we picked out our fresh fir with mixed feelings. Even though I hated to say goodbye to our family's tradition of tromping through the snow looking for the perfect tree, I was already formulating my plea for convenience, economy and ecological responsibility.
Environmental consciousness! That's the way I broke the news to my by then teenaged kids that they'd soon be stacking gifts beneath a fake tree.
"Our landfills are getting full," I reminded the daughter who's into recycling.
"Going artificial is an act of human consciousness," I told the girl who won't wear fur.
"No, phony, is not a synonym for synthetic," I advised the daughter who's into politically correct expression.
"We'll plant a live one in our yard come Arbor Day," I promised the son who once spent a month's allowance to preserve an acre of the world's rain forests.
"And just think - we'll never have to kill another evergreen to usher Christmas in."
I thought I had him there. This was the boy who'd buried a whole package of Pampers five years ago to prove they'd still be polluting the Earth long after his baby brother outgrew disposables.
"Bah! Humbug!" he grunted. "How many streams, lakes and ozone layers were polluted to make your fake?"
I didn't answer. I was too busy trying to fit branch tip "1024" into slot "ZZ" to get into an argument like that. Two things I knew I wasn't conserving in doing the convenient, environmentally responsible and economically sound thing were my own time and energy.