Hey Blog! Fittingly for December, I’m going Christmassy!
The Christmas tree is one of the most iconic symbols of the season, but this was not always so. In last year’s Christmas Special edition, I wrote (albeit very briefly) about the revived mediaeval tradition of hanging up branches of Holly (and the Ivy, when they are both full grown, etc…) which we have decided to use instead of the tree. The tree is a German tradition, and only came over in the Victorian Era. Since then, it has spread across the world – a result of the British Empire, which was at its hight at that point in history. Most households now have a tree every Christmas, but few are live ones. Have you ever stopped and thought of the cost that must have, both on the nature that surrounds the plantation and the climate cost that comes with releasing the carbon by chopping it down? Now imagine that, multiplied by the thousands of people who buy a tree like that, every year – not to mention that it completely kills the tree! Conifers are softwoods, a type of wood that is fast-growing and therefore has wide rings, meaning it’s easy to cut through with a saw. The other type are hardwoods, which generally grow more slowly, have thinner rings, and are harder to cut through. Though hardwoods can grow back if they are relatively young when cut, a process called coppicing, softwoods cannot.
Mum, who runs the Belper Home-Ed Eco Group, found out about the Cromford Mills Christmas Tree Exhibition, and applied for the group to enter a tree. We got a place, and some of the families who take part made decorations for the tree. This year’s theme is Sustainability, so all the decorations had to be made with sustainable materials. Most of the decorations were made in advance, but we did have a meeting in the morning on Decoration Day, (why does it sound like I’ve gone all poetical on you?) to get everything people had made together, and create the finishing touches. Included in the pile were pompoms; knitted/crocheted/paperclip-and-bell chains; cinnamon sticks; dried orange slices; angels made of pinecones, acorns, and silver wire; wooden discs with words and pictures on them in pyrography; sheep made of curtain rings and white wool; and lots more besides! As is usual at any group meeting in our community, we chat all the time – mostly about random totally unrelated stuff. However, by the end of the session we had a large mound of things fit for a tree.
We went to the mills in early afternoon (I took my Santa hat) and met with the two families who had volunteered to help decorate. We then piled the tree and looked around the others. There were quite a few, mostly indoors. Ours is outdoors, farthest down the row (please vote for ours!). Finally, after we had finished, we went and had hot chocolate in the café across the courtyard.