Albert the Organic Yulemas Tree

Meet Albert the Organic Yulemas Tree. I am so excited that we have our first ever Yulemas tree and that it's certified organic!

The experience was definitely interesting for this country mouse. I guess I never really thought about how city folk pick up their tree...

Andrew and I hopped into my little yaris two door hatchback sans roof racks with slight hesitation as to how we were going to fit an entire tree in there. But we had bungee cords bought special for the occasion (and will serve us for years to come) and spunk. (hah).

We had google mapped where the trees were being held- which was a complete gong show; we must have driven around the block and I was shouting obscenities most of the time. When we finally found the place parking was a nightmare. Oh right, city parking sucks in Halifax on a good day. Our fun tree pick up time started with me yelling at other 'granola' tree pedestrians to get the *%@# out of my way. (did I ever say that I have a touch of road rage...?).

With Andrew's soothing voice, we did manage to find a good parking spot and wandered over to see the trees. I've never ever chosen a tree. We were almost a little ridiculous. Andrew holding up a tree, me trying to evaluate whether it was too skinny, too tall, were the needs the pouffy kind. Really I finally just saw a tree that was ok height and I felt like there was a Lisa to tree connection. LMAO, I totally had a yoga-fouffy moment with this tree. Didn't even fluff it out to see what it looked like.

 Mr Kitten, meet Albert. Love at first bite.

We picked up 'Albert' and marched proudly over to our car. As we fumbled with how to work the hatch with the bungee cord, I could see people walking buy and laughing at us. People who actually know how to hook up bungee cords to cars. lol. It was awesome.

When we managed to hook up our tree into the tree stand dealy (made in New Brunswick!), pouff it up and we realized that our tree was a little lumpy. Well, ok a lot lumpy. I love it. I'm of the opinion that a tree needs to look like... well a natural tree. Not a weirdly perfect 'factory farmed tree' that is symmetrical. Trees aren't symmetrical triangles. Albert definitely is not symmetrical...

 

Success! Side note- my stocking on the left was handmade for my first Christmas by my late Tante Virginia 29 years ago. It has my name and is very very special to me.

Our decorations were donated by my mom. She brought up her box of decorations she had made herself when we were toddlers (approximately 25 years ago!). Funnily enough, I adore them! Not only do they bring back memories, but I think the tree actually looks vintage. The lights were sourced from mom's friend and are the ugly multi-coloured. But they're free! We listened to jazz music, drank some yummy Garrison Winter Warmer and decorated our first ever Yulemas Organic Tree.

One of mom's handmade wreaths- so cute!

Some ideas on decorating your tree as eco-friendly as possible:
- Ask around, perhaps you also have some friends or relatives who are into the whole 'trendy tree' thing and have some older stuff they no longer use.
- Check out a second hand store like Value Village to find 'new to you' decorations.
- Make your own! I saw some pretty fabulously made paper ornaments at Crafters. Although I could never make them, I could make some awesome ornaments with character. (key word, character lol).
- Buy handmade. Although usually pricier, these ornaments cut out the carbon spewage of huge factories and shipping. Also, they are works of art and are made with love! Don't have an awesome handmade store or crafters Christmas market near you? Etsy will be your friend.
- Try the popcorn garland and edible ornaments like candy canes.
- if you can't find second hand lights, invest in LED lights. You no longer have to have spaceship blue LED lights, 'soft white' is just as pretty as the regular white tree lights. (I know, since those lights were a gift to my mom a few years ago...and they look beautiful).

Happy Holidays my EcoYogi(ni)s!! I am seriously pumped to put our newspaper wrapped gifts under Albert the Organic Yulemas tree :)

article and photographs copyrighted by EcoYogini of ecoyogini.blogspot.com