The holiday season is officially over. Festive twinkling lights are seldom strung along houses, a fun new mutation of influenza is going around, I’m cold and sad; it’s gotta be February! It may seem as though memories of last Christmas are gone forever, in some homes there may yet be a single arboreous remnant of that sweet, fleeting Christmas spirit. Is it out of an undying devotion to the sweet plastic pine needles? Laziness? Spite? No matter the curious origin, the inquiry to be addressed on this brisk February day is as follows: at what point is it unacceptable to still have a Christmas tree up in one’s home?

My answer? It is constantly acceptable to be illuminated by the soft and comforting glow of a Christmas tree. There is no greater hypocrisy than feeling joy for the holiday season and celebrating it via tree (perhaps among other things) then days to weeks later going as far as shunning others for continuing to do the very thing that made you happy in the first place. To think all of this happens simply because of the Gregorian calendar system- something that humans completely made up. Time isn’t real and neither is your wrong opinion.

Before I continue, I would like to establish a disclaimer: throughout my whole life, I have had the same plastic composite tree that is easily assembled in three stackable tiers. It is therefore beyond my understanding why anyone would welcome a slowly dying tree into their home without any intention of keeping it alive. For this reason, I cannot speak for the logistics of keeping a decaying tree for months on end, so for the purposes of my argument, we will assume that any trees in question are purely plastic rather than tree corpse. 

It may be argued that keeping a tree up all year ruins the wonder and magical feelings that come with the holiday season. However, there is so much more that defines Christmas and winter holiday time than a tree. Some of these include but are not limited to increased stress, decreased monetary balances, and extreme quantities of food to console us in the daunting wake of the former items.

Additionally, there is no reason why a Christmas tree must exclusively pertain to Christmas. Decorations can be changed to those of relevance throughout the year. For example, Senior Marlee Randel’s “multipurpose” tree is decked out in red and pink heart shaped ornaments in celebration of Valentine’s Day, and she plans to continually use the tree as a universal holiday centerpiece. This lack of regard for restrictive social constructs ensures that she does not deny herself or her family the joy that comes with decorating their living space without fear of judgment.

Do you feel depressed and/or anxious? Perhaps you should invest in two separate year-round Christmas trees; one with cool energizing lighting and another with one with cozy warm lighting.

According to the article “Lighting to Make You Feel Better: Improving the Mood of Elderly People with Affective Ambiances”; different lighting settings, achievable in many mediums including light-up trees, can positively change the moods of a number of test subjects.  They stated that “sad elderly which were immersed in a positive high arousing ambiance [in reference to a sense of general mobilization or energy] were physiologically more aroused than sad elderly which were immersed in a neutral ambiance. The anxious elderly could be effectively calmed with a cozy ambiance.”

Do you think Christmas trees should remain up all year round?

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Why not experience the highs and lows of your life in the constant presence of a festive plastic tree? We fly around the sun year after year and have no choice but to watch each Christmas come and go. Is it so absurd for a tree to stick around until the next one just like we do? Even if all it does is cause a mischievous grin each time you see this object that is understandably out of place, maybe it can be a reminder that whatever happens, the future will always be a little brighter than if you had just left Christmas in December.