Decorations

November 29, 2024

Inside today’s Black Friday edition of my local newspaper was an article on another aspect of the US’s busiest time of the year. Millions of Americans will venture out to buy a live Christmas tree this weekend. This year tree growers were particularly hard hit. Growers faced the usual challenges of root rot, a lack of labor, and foreign competition, and inflation hit hard on everything from seeds to tractors. That was before Hurricane Helene left a path of destruction. The western part of North Carolina produces more Christmas trees than any US state except Oregon. Roughly 21.6 million live Christmas trees were purchased in the US last year at a median price of US$75, according to the National Christmas Tree Association. The day after Thanksgiving is the peak sales day for live trees, but Thanksgiving comes late this year, making for an unusually short selling season, another pressure on growers. Once the tree is purchased, you still need to add the decorations.

When I looked online, I found setting up and taking down Christmas decorations are associated with specific dates. Many Christian churches begin (liturgically) with a “hanging of the greens”. It is customary to set up the Christmas tree on Advent Sunday, the first day of the Advent season but many churches set the decorations after service on the last Sunday before Thanksgiving. More traditionally, a Christmas tree was not brought in and decorated until Christmas Eve (24 December). This marks the end of the Advent season and the start of the twelve days of Christmastide. Christians in many localities remove their Christmas decorations on Epiphany Eve (January 5th), the last day of the twelve days of Christmastide. Other Christian countries remove their decorations on Candlemas, the conclusion of the extended Christmas-Epiphany season (Epiphanytide). English tradition says it is acceptable (desirable) to leave your tree and decorations up until February 1st. In reality (except churches), decorations tend to go up and down depending on the weather and mood of the residents.

A growing trend in Christmas decorations is to leave your lights up year round. There are two problems with this. The lights can look unsightly, and they will also wear out quickly. While Christmas lights are weather-resistant they are not intended to be left on your home for years at a time. Permanent Christmas lights are a kind of residential architectural lighting you install once and use at Christmas, other holidays throughout the year, and even as day-to-day lighting. The lights are made up of a series of LED modules affixed along the soffit, trim work, or both, and concealed in specialty plastic or aluminum channels designed to blend in with your home’s color. If you look closely when the lights are turned off, you can see them, but they blend in well enough to look like part of the home, not strings of wires everywhere. Then you need to choose if you want to buy commercial lights, pay a professional to put them up, or just go with an off the shelf product. Who knew that Christmas decorations could be so complicated.

THOUGHTS: Scant labor is a problem for both the Christmas tree growers and the installation of outside decorations. North Carolina is one of the biggest users of the H-2A visa program for agricultural workers. The regulations around hiring foreign workers have become increasingly cumbersome, hourly rates are increasing to more than $16 next year, and the incoming administration has pledged to crack down on illegal immigration. Some are also nervous about the rhetoric around clamping down on legal immigration. The trees will not get harvested or the decorations put up without this outside labor force. German pastor Martin Niemöller is quoted saying, “First they came for the Socialists . . .” Act for all. Change is coming and it starts with you.