Christmas Tree Graveyard

I am ready for a weekend of rest and relaxation. It was a short, but trying week (hard to convince myself to go back to school, knowing full well that I deserved to be on vacation until next Monday!!) I am already sick of test prep for the big ELA state test that will be happening in a week and a half. Luckily, I have a great reason to pick out something enjoyable in my surroundings because of my Photo-a-day: The Jane Way blog.

Here we see a sad pile of forgotten Christmas trees, strewn on the sidewalk, just waiting to be taken to the big Tannenbaum in the sky. It's sorta sad really. They line these things up on fences along the roads beginning the day after Thanksgiving, wafting their sprucey scent up and down the streets. I get thwacked with them randomly by fathers and sons carrying them with mittens on the sidewalk in the days leading up to Christmas. I'm sure they are placed lovingly on a pedestal in all the homes that can afford a Christmas tree in New York until this time of year when they are stripped of their glory and tossed out with the bathwater. Uhg. What a sorry affair.

Well, even though these were cast aside, and I've been dodging clumps of them while walking home for several days, apparently there is hope on the horizon. NYC actually does a recycling program for Christmas trees. I checked the nyc.gov webpage to find out that IF these trees are free from lights, tinsel and other such decor, they will be gathered up and then used for mulch in the parks and gardens around the city. Hurrah for humanity! The link also is an advertisement for Mulchfest 2008: Chip in! Mulch your tree! Help NYC grow! It's this weekend, and I'm sure it'll be a blast. If I had a real tree, you'd for sure find me down there mulching with the best of them. There really should be more propaganda for this sort of thing! Maybe now someone else will see it and say to themselves "hey you, you should take that dry old needle-ridden dead tree down to Central Park and beautify the land a little". That's what I hope they'll say. Happy Friday tree-huggers!