why we burn our tree--a public service announcement
Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 12:57PM "The city will chip your tree for you," a friend mentioned as she sat in my living room last night. Our behemoth Christmas tree was sitting neglected in the corner, dried out and waiting for us to dispose of it. Father Bird and I turned glazed eyes on it and blinked. Oh yes, the tree. Something has to be done with the tree. We murmured thanks to our friend for the mention of the city's disposal method, and made a mental note to burn the tree tomorrow.
Because while we understand the value of making garden mulch out of everyone's evergreens, it's much easier, and a lot more fun, to haul it out in the pasture and light that sucker up.
Father Bird did the hauling honors, we sent our son to the end of the driveway for the newspaper we never read, and I brought my little kitchen lighter to the party. It's a long driveway, and before our runner came back with the paper, I leaned down and stuck that little lighter up under the Christmas tree needles. Less than thirty seconds later, this:
Now here's the public service announcement. If this were your dried-out Christmas tree, and if it somehow got a spark in it, say, from a little boy who decided to cut the Christmas lights cord, then this is what would happen to the corner of your living room before you could even get out of bed to go see about it.
Yes. That's why we burn the Christmas tree. It's because we want to caution everyone against the dangers of keeping 8 feet of dry, sappy kindling standing inside their houses after the holidays.
It has nothing whatever to do with the fact that camp chairs are pulled up eagerly to watch a mid-January bonfire,
Or that no one can resist picking up every stick anywhere in the yard to throw it into the fire,
No, it has nothing at all to do with the fact that all of us have some creepy desire to stand so close to a boiling inferno that our faces burn off, to poke it with rakes and feed it with anything flammable we can lay hands on, nor the fact that we stand around long after the fire's died down, prodding the last burnt ends into the coals to make it last just a little longer. Neither has it anything to do with the breathless way in which we all keep saying to each other, "Whoa. Did you see that tree go UP??"
No. It's all about you.
Go get that tree chipped.
~Mother Bird~
Reader Comments (5)
Cool. Makes me want to get a real tree next Christmas. Looks like so much fun. Where in California are you moving by the way?
Hey, lady! North county San Diego is where we're headed. And we're hoping to get to Utah more than we do....
~E~
No homemade chili and hot dogs?
Wow. Not on this fire. It was hot, and fast, and gone before we could have even gotten the hot dogs out or found green sticks or hauled out the picnic table or shut the cats in the car...
i love it!!!