How to Use our Outdoors for a Sustainable Christmas

Our outdoors has so much to offer when looking for a sustainable Christmas tree

Besides being the holiday of love and joy, Christmas is also the holiday of waste production: wrapping paper, presents nobody wanted and of course the Christmas tree.

On one side we have the “Real-Tree-Believers” and on the other the “Artificial-Tree-Believers”.

They certainly show some Pros and Cons, but let's look at them from a sustainable point of view:

Real Christmas Trees:

The obvious problem here is that the tree can only be used once, and gets disposed of after the Christmas season.

However, keep in mind that by cutting down these trees you don’t destroy natural ecosystems. The trees are grown commercially for the sole purpose of being cut down. And while the trees grow they can actually be beneficial for the environment. They clean the air by converting carbon, provide habitat for wildlife and prevent erosion. If the area would otherwise be built on and the soil thereby be sealed off, tree farms can actually preserve land.

However, the discussion here is not finite and there are many factors playing a role in the end.

Artificial Christmas Trees:

Most trees are manufactured in China, meaning they need to be shipped around half the globe to get to you. Additionally, you have the production emissions and the production requires materials like copper, steel, and plastic.

Yes, reusing the plastic tree definitely lowers its environmental impact, but in the end it is not recyclable and non-biodegradable and eventually ends up at a landfill.

If you buy a real Christmas tree from a local supplier that grows Christmas trees sustainably, it can actually be beneficial for the environment.

But what if I told you there might be a third option and that we can use what the outdoors offers us to have a sustainable Christmas?

There are so many options to get creative!

I want to show you this one that I particularly love:

It’s made of sticks that you can go and pick up yourself.

You can get really creative with the type of sticks you use, spend a fun day out in nature to collect the sticks, and then craft the tree exactly to your liking. You can adjust the height to your liking and decide how dense you want it to be. Some use only a few large sticks, others many thin sticks. Your creativity has no limits!

If you feel like you are missing some green, you can always pimp your tree with some fir branches, they are easy to find and you don’t need to cut down an entire tree to get them.

These trees are becoming more and more popular, especially among young people.

For the bookworms among us, we also have Christmas trees built of books.

I can tell you from experience: they are a real challenge!

But they are so much fun to build, especially with a group of friends.

And if you don’t have a lot of books you may decide to only have a very small one and that is great too. Once Christmas is over, you can just disassemble it and put the books back on the shelf. This tree really is no waste at all and let's be honest: it does give off a “young but sophisticated” kind of vibe :)

For anyone with a rather small living room, you can also just decide to make your own 2-D Christmas tree.

This tree is so easy to set up and all it requires is a place on the wall. And once again you can always spice it up with a couple of green branches.

And the best part about any of these Christmas trees is: they don’t need water, they don’t leave their needles everywhere and they cost next to nothing!

We are used to consuming natural resources as if resources on this planet were infinite. But they are not! We really need to learn how to live more sustainably and use what is being offered by nature. This is a wonderful, creative way to do so.