Christmas has come and gone. This year, it most likely started with you reeling from the unusually late calendar positioning of Thanksgiving. If your like me, then you emerged from your tryptophan-induced stupor on Black Friday only to realize, in horror, that you only had less than four weeks left to shop! Looking back on it, its a marvel we were able to get it all done; the shopping, the planning, the wrapping, and lest we forget…the tree…the centerpiece of any homely holiday experience. As the season draws to a close, and the dust begins to settle, you may be feeling slightly underwhelmed by your christmas tree experience. “Did I really shell out a hundred bucks and put in all this effort for this thing that’s gonna be in my living room for a week?” you may ask yourself. Fear not, for Kings Heating is here with some delightful ideas for repurposing your christmas tree this season. With just one of these ideas, you’ll be able to stretch your dollars, and the utility of your ‘used’ tree, far beyond what you first thought capable. Here’s our 3 main ideas for repurposing your Christmas tree:
Arts & Crafts
The decision to re-purpose your tree for a crafty use is really a window unto a multitude of options. Starting with fragrance alone, you can use the needles from your tree, along with a few other choice ingredients (cloves, sage, cinnamon sticks, etc.), to create a fragrant sachet. Simply combine your ingredients in a piece of fabric and stitch it closed. Voila! You can also bind some small needly twigs together and hang them in the doorways of your home. This will provide a wafting freshness thats greets you upon the entrance of every room. The homely blog site, thestir.cafemom.com, also has a few interesting suggestions for how to physically repurpose your tree, including a candle holder, future ornaments, drink coasters, and even a belt-buckle!
Return To Nature
Like a crafty re-use, the repurposing of your tree for a natural use gives you a number of options. You can use it to aide the growth of your garden by stripping the needles and using them as a winter mulch. You can line your compost bin with twigs and branches to aide in the decomposition of your yard waste. You can break off the the dryer twigs and use them for kindling in your home fireplace. Wait a couple of weeks, to ensure the trunk is sufficiently dried, then chop it up and use it to heat your home as you would with normal firewood. Finally, you can eat it. That’s right! Whether you use your pine-needles as a replacement for herbs, smoke meat with the branches, or boil and distill the oil from the needles to make a variety of syrups (as suggested by this blog), there are a number of ways you can actually ingest your tree and return its energy to your natural self!
Recycle It!
This last suggestion may seem a little obvious, but that’s because it’s important! Most cities only offer curbside pick-up on select days, but you can contact your city’s municipal waste department to see what they offer. Whether they offer a city-wide curbside pick up day, or they provide you with the location of a local recycling center you can take it to, it’s important to get that tree recycled. You can also contact your area’s local Boy Scout troupe, to see if they offer curbside pick up. If they do, they will eventually deliver your tree to a nearby recycling center. Finally, you can enter your zipcode at Earth 911 to find a recycling center close by!
Well, there ya go, our top 3 ideas to help repurpose your Christmas tree. We hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas spent with family and friends. Only 1 more year until next Christmas!! 🙂
