Curb Your Tree

Trash pickup – garbage collection – refuse hauling away to the landfill far, far away – is fixed on Tuesday mornings on my street, and we are past January 6, the traditional end of Christmas. So I un-decorated the tree and hauled it out to the curb this evening. Ann helped me in the process, and when I write helped I ought to write “helped,” because as I was removing ornaments, she was taking some back out of the boxes and hanging them again.

But my attention to the task didn’t wander as much as hers, and so I was able to outpace her and get all the holiday gewgaws back in the their storage boxes. One big box for hard-to-break items (plastic, etc.), a few boxes with private compartments for glass. Ornaments off, then lights. Last off was the star on top, which was the last on. Just for continuity’s sake.

The tree will vanish with the bags of garbage and the separate assortment of paper, plastic and glass earmarked for recycling. I doubt that I’m really “saving” the Earth even in any micro-way when I fill that blue bin, but I do it anyway. It’s more of a custom than anything else. Everyone else fills the bins, so I do. If recycling were really important, I’d be paid to do it.

For a day or two, it'll feel like something’s missing from the living room. I guess something is, since the tree stayed a month: one out of every twelve days of the year. Now all that’s left of the seasonal decor is the odd pine needle here and there. I got most of them, but they never all go away until about July.