Three years ago I braved Target in order to purchase an artificial Christmas tree that would fit into our teeny tiny city apartment in Uptown. Since there was not a single non-pre-lit tree in the store, I settled on a seven foot narrow tree with about a thousand wire arms strangling the life out of the branches. Once home and embarking on the not-so-fun endeavor of assembly, I was dubious about the warning labels all over the tree.
WARNING: contains harmful chemicals banned in Europe, California, and everywhere else that cares about dying and stuff. Causes infertility, birth defects, cancer, male pattern baldness, cancer, eczema, cancer, obesity, and an overwhelming fear of getting cancer.
Throwing caution to the wind, I decorated my tree and loved it. I loved it the next year and the year after that.
This year I pulled my rumpled tree out of storage to find the lights no longer work. After a ton of googling, I discovered it is unfixable and that these trees are manufactured to basically konk out by the three year mark. This never surprises me since our world is hellbent on destroying itself and heaven forbid anything NOT be disposable. Perplexed, I asked everyone I knew if they had ever de-lighted their pre-lit tree, i.e. removed the wires. I heard every answer from “sure, it only took six hours”, to “Crap lady, are you crazy? Just buy a new tree!”.
I was NOT buying a new tree. No freaking way. The whole point to an artificial tree was to not have to throw out a tree. Throwing out the tree was not happening.
I sent my husband out to the hardware store for wire cutters. Unfortunately the only set he could find were the smallest, cheapest cutters in existence. I cracked my hands and did some pre-tree-wrangling-stretching.
It started out fine. Snip snip snip nip. Snip-snip. After snipping and unwrapping wires for about 20 minutes my shoulders were aching and my hands felt as though they were on fire. Perhaps the burning sensation was from the death inducing chemicals from the previously mentioned warning labels?
As I moved up the tree, the wires were wrapped and twisted in a way that became more convoluted with every twist and turn and I became increasingly convinced that the factories that made these abominations were completely staffed by Satan’s minions.
After two hours my hands were red and swollen, burning with pain. (Quite possibly from the napalm they constructed the tree with.) My arms were covered in angry red scratches as though I had a recent throw down with a rabid alley cat. I violently chucked the last straggling wires onto the pile and watched it give out its final death rattle. Every last muscle in my body ached from maintaining the much needed attack mode I maintained for those two hours. I felt satisfied. So, so satisfied. I had defeated the enemy. The enemy being a society that encourages me to buy a brand new everything and throw my money down the drain on a new tree.
I watched in awe as my once strangled tree flourished into a full, green delight after years of being oppressed by the death grip of wire and rubber. I pulled a 15 year old strand of lights out of the storage chest and plugged them in. They work. In fact only only one bulb is out on the entire strand. They really do not make things like they used to . FIFTEEN years old!
I decorated my tree and patted myself on the back for another low-waste holiday.
The next day my two year old grabbed every ornament within his reach and shattered them one by one into a million pieces on the hardwood floor.
ah hahahaha – loved the ending to this story! And the dramatic build up!
this is why I prefer real trees. Sustainable (I think? right? Please just don’t tell me if they’re really not! LOL), natural, and they smell so good.
They do, however, still scratch your hands up! 🙂
I do really love the smell of real trees. I just hate the hassle. However, this year the tree was definitely not as simple!