Peter, a man who finds himself kidnapped by a family of trees
December 17, 2018 4:16 AM Subscribe
a dark tale about Christmas trees aligned with some recent studies on plants ability to feel pain, going much further than the voices asking for no more sheep sacrifice during religious celebration ''Eid Al Adha'' in muslim countries
I don't feel qualified to comment on Eid, but I am getting fed up with the Christmas trees. I'm in Australia. It's 30+ degrees and I wake up dehydrated every morning. What is the point of having a chopped down pine sapling that is too big for the living room?
It just seems like a big waste for very little benefit. It dies rapidly, who knows where and how they're growing them, I barely notice the ornaments and there's no-one young enough or high enough to really enjoy the cheap chocolate and candy canes anymore.
Maybe it's Grinchy of me but this year I am not feeling the winter Christmas aesthetic while the heat leeches the energy from every day.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 6:48 AM on December 17, 2018 [10 favorites]
It just seems like a big waste for very little benefit. It dies rapidly, who knows where and how they're growing them, I barely notice the ornaments and there's no-one young enough or high enough to really enjoy the cheap chocolate and candy canes anymore.
Maybe it's Grinchy of me but this year I am not feeling the winter Christmas aesthetic while the heat leeches the energy from every day.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 6:48 AM on December 17, 2018 [10 favorites]
See also: 2011's "Treevenge", a live-action 15 minutes of gory seasonal delight.
posted by FatherDagon at 6:58 AM on December 17, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by FatherDagon at 6:58 AM on December 17, 2018 [4 favorites]
I never had a Christmas tree for the simple reason that I always lived in a small apartment. I eat meat ( and my body needs iron as it can't get it enough from vegetables) and I eat vegetables so truly I don't know what to think ... animals suffer, plants probably too, so what is left?
posted by sophieJu at 7:56 AM on December 17, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by sophieJu at 7:56 AM on December 17, 2018 [2 favorites]
who knows where and how they're growing them
I don't know about Australia, but mine comes from Newfoundland. Like most NYCers, I buy mine from an independent vendor on the street, and I discussed it with him. From Thanksgiving through Christmas, every few blocks there's an aisle of Christmas trees. It's sort of the seasonal complement of Herrick's "Each Porch, each doore, ere this, /An Arke a Tabernacle is/ Made up of white-thorn neatly enterwove." And it's the nicest thing you'll smell on a NYC street all year long.
posted by praemunire at 8:15 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't know about Australia, but mine comes from Newfoundland. Like most NYCers, I buy mine from an independent vendor on the street, and I discussed it with him. From Thanksgiving through Christmas, every few blocks there's an aisle of Christmas trees. It's sort of the seasonal complement of Herrick's "Each Porch, each doore, ere this, /An Arke a Tabernacle is/ Made up of white-thorn neatly enterwove." And it's the nicest thing you'll smell on a NYC street all year long.
posted by praemunire at 8:15 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
Most of my family has made the swap to artificial trees. My Dad still grows and cuts his own tree each year on his property. I recently heard about a tree farm that uses a special method that doesn't kill the tree (stump culture). Which, I suppose in this context might be more akin to amputation.
posted by carrioncomfort at 8:28 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by carrioncomfort at 8:28 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm not worried about tree feelings but the mess and bother of real trees just got to be too much. I had to borrow or rent a shop vac after Christmas to get up all the pine needles. I have a small prelit tree this year and it's awesome.
(also this was disturbing but more in the that-one-guy-in-class-who-likes-grossing-people-out kinda way and less in a clever way).
posted by emjaybee at 8:45 AM on December 17, 2018 [2 favorites]
(also this was disturbing but more in the that-one-guy-in-class-who-likes-grossing-people-out kinda way and less in a clever way).
posted by emjaybee at 8:45 AM on December 17, 2018 [2 favorites]
This past autumn I visited the barrier islands of North Carolina right after Florence passed by, and was shocked to find one area of eroded beachfront strewn with dead Christmas trees. Seems the locals used them at one point to build up the dune line, and the long-buried trees were resurfacing. It felt like a sad, sandy Christmas graveyard.
posted by kinnakeet at 9:28 AM on December 17, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by kinnakeet at 9:28 AM on December 17, 2018 [4 favorites]
The tree people weren't being intentionally cruel, they were just doing what they do, oblivious to the suffering of their guest of honor.
posted by otherchaz at 9:38 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by otherchaz at 9:38 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
Based on a rejected treatment for The Happening 2.
posted by Naberius at 9:39 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Naberius at 9:39 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
As a kid growing up in India, I was used to Christmas trees in books and movies, but misunderstood: in my ignorant imagination a Christmas tree was a living tree that grew in a kind of flower pot. (All my handdrawn Christmas cards had a flower pot at the bottom.)
Picture my shock when I one day I finally learned that at the bottom of the tree was a ... stump.
I don't think trees feel pain in the same way animals with neurons do, but the symbolism of killing a tree and propping up its corpse in one's living room as decoration feels wrong to me even today.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:55 AM on December 17, 2018 [4 favorites]
Picture my shock when I one day I finally learned that at the bottom of the tree was a ... stump.
I don't think trees feel pain in the same way animals with neurons do, but the symbolism of killing a tree and propping up its corpse in one's living room as decoration feels wrong to me even today.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:55 AM on December 17, 2018 [4 favorites]
Have a real tree. They're much nicer to have in the home and they're much nicer for the environment (compared to making, shipping, and eventually throwing away a plastic tree). And if you are worried about the environment, putting up a tree is nothing compared to other typical Christmas activities like flying or driving home for Christmas to deliver a pile of plastic to the kiddies.
posted by pracowity at 10:20 AM on December 17, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 10:20 AM on December 17, 2018 [3 favorites]
So one of the things no one thinks about is where all those Christmas trees go in the new year. (and thank god the weird ad people didn't take it this far)
In Toronto they just send around a regular compacting garbage truck on a special route to pick up nothing but Christmas trees. And that truck, packed with freshly crushed pines and cedars, SMELLS AMAZING. It's the one day of the year in Toronto when I could follow the garbage truck around all day just smelling it.
posted by GuyZero at 10:56 AM on December 17, 2018 [7 favorites]
In Toronto they just send around a regular compacting garbage truck on a special route to pick up nothing but Christmas trees. And that truck, packed with freshly crushed pines and cedars, SMELLS AMAZING. It's the one day of the year in Toronto when I could follow the garbage truck around all day just smelling it.
posted by GuyZero at 10:56 AM on December 17, 2018 [7 favorites]
I don't think trees feel pain in the same way animals with neurons do, but the symbolism of killing a tree and propping up its corpse in one's living room as decoration feels wrong to me even today.
It helps to think of this as a medieval German tradition when the average person was outnumbered by trees like 200 to one.
posted by GuyZero at 10:57 AM on December 17, 2018 [9 favorites]
It helps to think of this as a medieval German tradition when the average person was outnumbered by trees like 200 to one.
posted by GuyZero at 10:57 AM on December 17, 2018 [9 favorites]
I came here to link Treevenge only to find FatherDragon beat me to it. I'm not even mad because I love Treevenge that much.
My favourite holiday memory is screening Treevenge for my immediate family and their partners. The horrified looks from everyone were fun, but the thing that made it great was the look of pure glee on my older brother's face. His face was a glowing beacon of delight in a room full of people that couldn't believe someone would make something as horrible Treevenge. My brother, he gets me. We don't have much in common aside being family, but we do have the same twisted sense of humour and love of gonzo over-the-top horror.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:06 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
My favourite holiday memory is screening Treevenge for my immediate family and their partners. The horrified looks from everyone were fun, but the thing that made it great was the look of pure glee on my older brother's face. His face was a glowing beacon of delight in a room full of people that couldn't believe someone would make something as horrible Treevenge. My brother, he gets me. We don't have much in common aside being family, but we do have the same twisted sense of humour and love of gonzo over-the-top horror.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:06 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
In NYC they are recycled/composted. I really can't feel bad about it. It's certainly no more horrible than chopping the tree-corpse into bits and using it to provide a cheery, cozy, glowing hearth!
(Or murdering flowers and arranging them into aesthetically pleasing corpse-displays.)
posted by praemunire at 11:12 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
(Or murdering flowers and arranging them into aesthetically pleasing corpse-displays.)
posted by praemunire at 11:12 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also if you get a tree from a decent tree farm the stump is very much still alive - our tree came from a stump that had clearly been cut at least once if not twice. So it's more like a really extreme haircut.
posted by GuyZero at 11:45 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by GuyZero at 11:45 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
We bought real trees for a couple of years. Then we got some small tree that had to be kept in a pot because it wasn't hardy enough for our winters in Toronto. It got sick and died over the first summer outside. Last year we ended up getting some small artificial birch trees with lights on the ends from Costco fur use as a Christmas tree. They work well as nightlights so we keep them out much longer than if they were proper Christmas trees. I'm somewhat anti-Christmas tree for religious reasons but at this point Christmas' commercialization and secularization is so advanced that I feel like a bit of a crank for thinking this way.
As far as Eid is concerned I don't have much of a problem with the large-scale slaughter. Traditionally you're supposed to keep 1/3 of the meat for yourself, 1/3 for friends and 1/3 for the poor. That 1/3 by itself is more than a lot of people can store and use so its become pretty common here in Toronto for people to just give the whole thing for the poor either here or abroad. As a Muslim vegetarian I'm OK with people getting to eat meat once a year that they wouldn't be able to afford otherwise. Significantly cut down the meat people eat over the remaining 364 days of the year and then we can talk about Eid.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:29 PM on December 17, 2018 [5 favorites]
As far as Eid is concerned I don't have much of a problem with the large-scale slaughter. Traditionally you're supposed to keep 1/3 of the meat for yourself, 1/3 for friends and 1/3 for the poor. That 1/3 by itself is more than a lot of people can store and use so its become pretty common here in Toronto for people to just give the whole thing for the poor either here or abroad. As a Muslim vegetarian I'm OK with people getting to eat meat once a year that they wouldn't be able to afford otherwise. Significantly cut down the meat people eat over the remaining 364 days of the year and then we can talk about Eid.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:29 PM on December 17, 2018 [5 favorites]
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posted by MythMaker at 6:41 AM on December 17, 2018