The twilight of the Christmas tree

The Christmas tree is the undeniable rockstar of the holiday season. Warm and soothing, draped in decorations from classic red and green bulbs to funky family favorites fished out of a cereal box fifteen years ago, the Christmas tree—sentimental, sexy, sacrosanct—plays a central role in every family's Christmas tradition.

But the Christmas tree has had its day.

The truth is that the while you might think of the Christmas tree as a symbol of love and family and cheer, it is not. It is only a symbol of destruction. It is an obscene and sacrilegious beacon, the bloodstained altar at which we offer up the planet with Prime boxes swaddled in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer wrapping paper as the Colorado runs dry and the Amazon burns.

Yet we sing songs about these sparkling corpses. We erect these towering monstrosities in the squares of our cities and ice skate under them. It is perverted, it is sick and it is downright cruel to celebrate the birth of Christ each December by sentencing a living, breathing tree to slowly suffocate in our living room.

Make no mistake: if you’re still erecting a Christmas tree in the living room for your kids to gawk at because it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, you are a piece of shit.

I'm sure the millions of people reading this have fond memories of decorating the tree with their families, and feel outrage about being told they must do away with such a tradition. I don't give a fuck. If we want to show our kids and the world that we take sustainability seriously—that we take climate change seriously—we need to do away with harmful traditions, however nostalgic they may be. And, yes, that includes artificial trees, too, which still propagate the myth of benevolent deforestation.

I don’t want to be the person that is speaking out against Christmas trees but somebody has to. I understand that Christmas trees represent cherished memories to many people. But maybe we can take a page out of the Seinfeld playbook and find a more sustainable alternative to them, such as a coat rack, which we can still drape in lights and ornaments and make beautiful. We obviously need something to put our presents under, I'm just saying it doesn't have to be trees. Enough is enough.

Do you have an idea for what could be an ethical replacement for the Christmas tree? Drop a comment below.

Be sure to check out the rest of the blog, too, if you need help identifying what other Christmas traditions are harmful, such as Elf on the Shelf and how it is indoctrinating your child.