As I posted on Mastodon on Christmas Eve, every January the previous year's Christmas tree is cut up, with the trunk store in the shed during the year to dry out. Come the next Christmas Eve and it is burned on the log burner. Today was the day the 2023 tree finally met its fate (I'd like to say this is a Twelfth Night/Epiphany thing, but our decorations came down on New Year's Day and the tree has been sat in the garden looking pathetic since then…).
As much as I love Christmas and getting the Christmas tree decorated, come early January there is something satisfying about dismantling the tree (literally) and putting it to good use. As I stood cutting up branches with my secateurs to make sure it fits in the garden waste bin, I felt strangely relaxed and mindful. Having chosen not to listen to a podcast while I worked (I forgot to take out my headphones…) it gave me a chance to just focus on what I was doing in the here and now.
This year, as well as cutting up the tree, I had the fun of a little planting as well. The wife ordered a couple of miniature fir trees which arrived through the post for decorating last year. The beauty of these trees, they had roots still attached. So alongside the annual cutting up tradition, today I have also started what I hope might be a new tradition of growing miniature forests.
For those wondering, the fir tree is towards the back, the other three conifers I bought from a local garden centre to complete my forest. I've even managed to add some moss plugs (bloody dinosaurs keep ripping up the moss in my patio cracks) into the soil which I hope will cover the ground in time to add to the foresty atmosphere.
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