The Death Of Christmas Trees.

Every year, around this time, I notice dozens of discarded Christmas trees tagged, bagged and haphazardly heaped on curb sides all over my neighborhood

Now you may be thinking, “What does this have to do with technology?” to which I would reply “A great deal actually!”

Please bear with me as I explain:

Christmas, it is theorized, had its beginnings in the ceremonies and rituals of the Celts and Romans. These hardy men and women symbolically supplicated the fierce gods of Winter by bringing the branches of evergreens into their homes and decorating them. “Christmas”, Saturnalia or Jul (Yule) as it was called in those yesterdays represented Man’s attempt to control and influence the forces of the natural world, now fast forward two thousand years or so to our modern age. 

Modern man no longer needs the intercession of the gods to survive the long, cold winters of yore. Hence Christmas has been transformed into a purely commercial holiday. Man has developed technology. Man has built a world that is not entirely dependent on the disposition of Nature. Yes, men are still subject to the forces of natural world and to disasters of a natural sort, but surviving any given winter isn’t the life and death struggle that it once was. Again, you can thank technology for all of that glorious heat it brings us in the wintertime.

Getting back on topic though: would our ancestors, no, COULD our ancestors ever conceive of a time when the bright, green centerpieces of their winter "celebrations" would be created from completely artificial materials that have absolutely nothing to do with the natural world? Could they possibly fathom the irony of a Christmas/Saturnalia/Jul celebration that did not need to placate the gods of heat, winter, life and growth? Furthermore, do the artificial monstrosities, commonly referred to as a family’s “fake” Christmas tree somehow reflect our attitude towards ritual and not only ritual, but technology as well?

Far in the past is the time when men thought of technology as “magical” and yet, technology, for all of it's pragmatism, is often described as "magical". Many devices have come along and “revolutionized” the way we, as humans, interact with each other and our world. It is easy to overlook these devices, these daily exchanges with the technology that we manipulate. It is easy to discount the profound effect these devices make on and in our lives.  The point of my rant today, if it is anything, is our unconscious, take-it-for-granted relationship with technology. My point might be our lack of historical perspective vis-a-vis technology.  

The point of my rant is the shrinking number of browning Christmas trees I notice on the curbside.

Yeah, it’s a good thing (environmentally speaking) we have going with our “fake” Chrismtas trees

And perhaps it's a horrible thing, or, perhaps, the truly awful thing is our tendency to take a wondrous technological innovation like the fake Christmas tree for granted...