85. Keep your artificial Christmas tree for at least seven years.

Like episode 84- It’s Christmas. In April…Again.  

Let’s keep it real about artificial trees: 

• People display fake plants all the time and don’t store them away for 11 months.  
• We’re starting to notice the holiday season rolling out sooner and ending later.  
• Some people leave their string of holiday lights up year ‘round.   

Therefore, if we’re keeping an artificial Christmas tree for at least 7 years, let’s proudly display it - all the time. We propose not taking the 7 year artificial tree down this year. It’s artificial, it’s lovely and it fills us with anticipatory joy.

Plus, there’s a slight chance Santa will drop off gifts *more than once* if we keep the tree up…

To help you ‘Keep your artificial Christmas tree for at least seven years’, here’s a simple 2-step process:

1. Go out an ‘artificial’ limb 
2. Display your artificial tree for 7 ‘authentic’ years - all year round. 

Your ‘7 years into the future’ version of your Future You already knows what’s going to happen. Of course in 7 years, your artificial Christmas tree will be an Artificial Intelligence Christmas Tree (AI CT) and will know how to hang the stockings, order your gifts and write all your heartfelt holiday greeting cards. Just don’t ask it to sing ‘Baby it’s cold outside’, that song has been banned for the past 5 years… 

P.S. - It’s been reported that Corporate Housing Companies help ‘Keep your artificial Christmas tree for at least seven years’’ by befriending Jolly old St Nick and supplying him and many elves with a furnished monthly place to stay post-December 25th.  While this really doesn’t help our guests ‘keep their artificial tree for at least seven years’, we thought we would use this P.S. to name drop. Oh, and Rudolph wanted us to tell you that he said ‘he’s done watering the plants’ whatever that means..  

Why does this ‘Future You’ Series exist? What’s it about?  

1. Promote easy, quirky sustainable practices that are NOT preachy, or guilt-ridden and without a focus on the ‘saving the planet’ (hint: the planet is going to survive no matter what we do). 

2. A playful post of simple ways to sorta improve our lives, and the lives of those we love. Also improve our future lives… by taking playful action today. 

3. Still reading? Cool. We think you’re amazing and full of joyful zest. 

This series is based off ‘105 Simple Sustainable actions’ - from Stephane Omsanski’s article in Parade from 2021.

https://parade.com/1300935/stephanieosmanski/ways-reduce-carbon-emissions/

85. Keep your artificial Christmas tree for at least seven years.

Alternatively, you can buy an artificial Christmas tree, but if you've ever wondered which one has a less environmental impact—live or artificial—the answer is complicated. So long as you keep your artificial Christmas tree for up to seven years, then it negates the impact of buying a faux tree.