It’s an age-old question.  Every year, thousands of trees are grown, then chopped down, to feed the world’s insatiable desire for Christmas trees, and every year those trees end up hitting the curb in January, slightly wilty and covered with leftover tinsel.   Well, if you’re a member of the Friends of the Rootless Forest, an organization in San Francisco, your New Year is spent roaming the city, scooping up Christmas trees for the annual Post Yule Pyre.  Those discarded trees are given a respectful Viking funeral every year in a pretty impressive bonfire.

Half the world away, the zoo in Dobrich, Bulgaria, also explores for discarded trees.  Every year, they take a hundred or so old firs and recycle them in a pretty special way.  It’s not a bonfire; it’s a special treat for the herbivores in the zoo.  Some animals, especially Przewalski’s horses and bison, love the taste of discarded Christmas trees.  So they take old trees and turn them into snacks!

While most old trees undoubtedly end up as mulch or in landfills, a few trees get to meet a more dignified, helpful end.   Or, if your family is like mine, your old tree ends up stuffed in the attic covered in an old garbage bag until next year, when you reassemble the plastic pieces again for next holiday season.

Tags: Christmas tree disposal, getting rid of old Christmas trees, Christmas tree bonfire, Yule, Post Yule Pyre, Friends of the Rootless Forest, San Francisco, Christmas trees burned, Dobrich, Bulgaria, Christmas trees turned into animal feed, zoos, buffalo feed, Przewalski’s horses

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]