Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Dave Getchell]

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas Toronto and the rest of the world!


By Dave Getchell







I got thinking this year about being “Holiday Green”. My family has not been particularly green in the past, but I remember some years when my aunt reused wrapping paper by meticulously removing the tape without tearing anything, then folding it all up and saving for future use, her patience was impressive!



This year, I thought about the old artificial Christmas trees we have in storage at work that are going to waste spending another year in their boxes because they are beat-up looking and I haven’t called them trash yet.



I had a “What if” moment tonight and suggested to my family “What if we have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree this year?”… with a single red ball hanging forlornly on a bent stalk (from a sad looking tree borrowed from work) – on Christmas eve, the next day we could make a family event and use whatever decorations we had on hand to make it shine!



I went further to suggest that this approach was nearly 100% green and that we could also donate the cash we saved this year by not buying a tree ($20 - $600) to a charity that helped people who could not afford a tree.



I also suggested we could share the idea, influencing thousands of others to do so.



I did not get the response from my family that I would have liked (they didn’t say “you Blockhead” but they may as well have).



I still think it is a worthy idea, There’s an orphaned tree, a potted or used-artificial pine, an aloe plant, a fern or even a coat rack that could serve this year as a symbol of your own Christmas initiative to be “Green”, and if you have a sad, needy tree, why not consider the before-and-after decorating approach to avoid the expense and hassle of searching for the perfect tree.



How many dollars this year will be spent this year on decorative trees, fake or real? How many dollars will go toward the treatment and prevention of war, poverty and disease?



Please consider your environmental choices, and if you have never seen the 1965 animated special “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, written by Charles Schultz, I recommend it highly.



dg