The REAL War on Xmas

Awaiting the Season

Why isn't anybody doing anything about this?

National survey data help fill out the picture. The percentage of households putting up a Christmas tree fell from 90 percent in 1989 to 76 percent in 2018. The percentage of real trees has dropped even faster: from 47 percent in 1989 to 21 percent last year.

Do you mean America's kids are not waking up to find a huge pile of stuff underneath anything resembling a Xmas tree at all?  THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! THIS IS YOUR REAL WAR ON XMAS!!

Although, to be honest, I haven't bought a real tree in probably 10 years.  My Xmas trees (yes, multiple) are wood (I still want to get an aluminum one, like the one we had in my childhood that my parents gave away without even offering it to me!), but are trees only in the conceptual sense.  As you can see from that statistic above, I'm in the majority, now.

WaPo blames the Boomers:

But the biggest factor of all may be demographics: As children move out and parents enter their retirement years, the annual holiday pilgrimage to the tree farm may have less appeal than it once did. Survey data back this up: In 2014, for instance, 44 percent of the buyers ages 30 to 49 put up a real Christmas tree. Among those 65 and older, just 16 percent did the same, while a staggering 81 percent chose an artificial tree.

I didn't go to a tree farm until my daughter was born; our trees always came from tree lots in the city. We went to a tree farm because we lived in rural Illinois at the time, there were no tree lots around.  We kept it up in Houston until nobody really wanted to make the drive, or deal with the mess.  But I still don't see why Millenials are not responsible for not taking up the slack.  I keep reading there are more of them than of us, and even if they don't have kids yet, they're still kids themselves, aren't they?

I think artificial trees have just become easier to buy and store, and most of 'em come "pre-lit."  Toughest part of the tree, after picking up needles, is getting the strings of lights on and off.  Is easier a Boomer thing, too?  I thought Millenials were the ones sitting on their couches ordering everything from books to toilet paper to meals on their phones and leaving the door unlocked so it can all be brought into them where they sit.  Obviously I need to update my generational stereotypes.

“The trends are very favorable to real trees today,” O’Connor said. “Many families want to have authentic experiences, do good things for the environment and know the story behind the products they buy. Real trees match up completely with that; a fake tree made from PVC plastic in a Chinese factory does not.”

I dunno; what's the carbon cost of cutting a tree down in its prime and tossing it in the trash two weeks later?  Maybe I should start selling a line of wooden dowel Xmas trees on Etsy.....