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Christmas Trees and Traditions The tree, used as a symbol of life, is older than Christianity and not exclusive to any one religion. It has become part of our holiday customs and engages not only our senses of sight, touch and smell, but also our sense of tradition, hope and goodwill. The decorated Christmas tree can be traced back to the ancient Romans who, during their winter festival, decorated trees with small pieces of metal. This was done during Saturnalia, a winter festival in honour of Saturnus, the god of agriculture. The Paradise tree, an evergreen, was decorated with apples as a symbol of the feast of Adam and Eve held on December 24th during the middle ages. In the 16th century Martin Luther was credited as being the first to decorate an indoor tree. After a walk through a forest of evergreens with shining stars overhead, Luther tried to describe the experience to his family. He showed them by bringing a tree into their home and decorating it with candles. |
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The Environment Once in a while someone will say we should stop cutting Christmas Trees to save our environment. This is untrue! Cutting Christmas Trees can be an environmentally winning situation. Young, vigorously growing trees like Christmas Trees, are nature's most efficient oxygen producers. One hectare of Christmas Trees provides enough Oxygen annually for forty five people. Christmas Trees provide an ideal habitat for birds and animals of all sizes. Growing Christmas Trees enhances the aesthetics of the rural landscape and helps reduce erosion and flooding by increasing soil percolation and delaying run off. |
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Christmas Trees are the most environmentally friendly crop around! The growing
time for a tree is from two and a half to three and a half years. To maintain
an ongoing harvest, the farm must have 3 to 4 more trees growing for every tree
harvested. As such, 20% of this farm is always supporting a tree crop and
providing all of the environmental benefits mentioned above. This farm provides many helpful jobs, primarily to high school students and college students at planting, pruning and harvesting time. It is one of the newest industries, employing workers in rural areas and we all know how important these jobs are in the bush. |
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Natural Christmas Trees are totally biodegradable and have many uses after the
Christmas season. They can be chipped and used in gardens. Whatever their uses,
Christmas Trees easily break down and will eventually provide pure, rich,
compost. Real trees are an all Australian product. Whereas most artificial trees are manufactured overseas using non-biodegradable plastics and metals. Perhaps the most important aspect of the trees is their affect on Global Warming by taking carbon out of the atmosphere. The ever increasing concentration of carbon in the atmosphere is the major factor contributing to Global Warming. Provided the trees are not burnt this carbon will be removed from the atmosphere permanently. |
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