Yule trees and guilty pleasures

I put up my Yule tree today. It is sparkly silver with lights that change colour and I think it looks lovely.

Not that I expect everyone to agree with me. I am sure many witches feel a real tree is more traditional, even though the custom of bringing a fir tree into the house only became popular in England during Victorian times.

I also suspect real trees are more environmentally friendly. They are normally grown on managed Christmas tree farms, so get replanted, and there are plenty of places to take them for recycling after Twelfth Night.

Tinsel trees, on the other hand, are made from plastics that are hard to recycle and take decades to break down naturally.

So, I do feel a little guilty about not being as environmentally friendly as a witch probably should be.

However, my silver tree reminds me of so many happy times.

It was early December, some years ago, when I first went out with the man I eventually married. We went to a nightclub that had a silver tree that twinkled with fibre optic lights. It was the first time I had seen a tree like it and I thought it was wonderful.

A few years later, on December 21 - the winter solstice, my husband and I got the keys to the first flat we bought together. When we moved in, the only furniture we had was a bed and a fibre optic tinsel tree.

And that is the tree I still have, dressed with silver baubles and beautiful memories.