Branding the man: why men are the next frontier in fashion retail

In the not-so-old days, the expedition to find the perfect Christmas tree involved getting into a station wagon with ropes and blankets and a very sharp ax.

In A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote writes of his boyhood memory of picking a tree that is “a brave handsome brute that survives thirty hatchet strokes before it keels with a creaking rending cry…Lugging it like a kill…”

Despite our nostalgia for Christmas past, the truth is, Live Christmas trees are perhaps one of the most wasteful aspects of the holiday — not including the exchange of gifts nobody wants or needs.

In 2008 U.S. consumers bought 28.2 million Christmas trees — a ten-percent decline from the previous year. 2009 looked to be a full 35-percent up, and from the number that showed up on curbs around my neighborhood, it certainly looked like the spirit of Christmas came alive for many. Perhaps it was just their way of saying goodbye to a truly awful year.

And so in these early days of 2010, I snapped some pictures of trees once loved, now chucked unceremoniously to the sidewalk. Some appear to be waiting for a bus. Others are shrouded in embarassment. Some lean against one another for support while others have been horribly mutilated – one burned, another clipped of its branches that were then neatly stuffed into knotted bags. Others were allowed to keep their tinsel or lights. A festive farewell.

These are the ghosts of a Christmas past.

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