It’s Christmas, y’all.
Welcome to this issue of Stumped by Nature, where we notice nature lurking just beyond our screens, curate a list of outside-y events in Austin, and build community with other folks in the thick of the startup ecosystem.
In this week’s issue:
🪿 Holiday tradition/nature overlap
🌤️ Upcoming outdoors events
❄️ Seasonal event deluge
Let’s dig in!
-Nicole
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NATURE SPOTLIGHT
Have you been subjected to the cheery glow of the Christmas spirit this season?
Today, we’re getting into who’s responsible for making evergreens a focal point of festivities.
Parenting tip: delegate
WHY WE DECORATE TREES
Raise your hand if you have been in proximity to a decorated tree this season.
You handraisers are in the company of generation after generation after generation of tree-lookers.
And before the tree-lookers, the tree-limb lookers.
It comes as little surprise that these indoor tree-related traditions have pagan roots. For well over 2,000 years, especially in Northern Europe, evergreens were a visible reminder that life persists through winter, even when everything else appears dormant. Evergreen boughs were brought indoors to honor nature spirits, ward off evil, and to symbolize renewal and good fortune. Keyword: bough. A little evergreen goes a long way.
By the 1400s, folks decided to go big and go home. December 24th marked the feast day of Adam and Eve, and in the Alsace region, households displayed “Paradise Trees”— full-sized evergreens adorned with apples, wafers, and tinsel to represent the Garden of Eden.
By 1605, fir trees make it to written documentation as being brought indoors and decorated. And by the 1840s, the modern Christmas tree tradition spread via immigrants from present day Germany, where it rooted into the broader cultural norm of Europe and America.
Artificial Christmas trees started to appear in late 19th-century Germany, made from dyed goose feathers attached to wire branches, as a middle ground between tradition and a wariness of deforestation.
In the 1930-50s, the toilet brush manufacturers added brush-style trees to their production line up, significantly expanding the artificial tree population.
The PVC plastic trees we most commonly see today were a 1970-80s boom, as mass production and big-box retail made the shift possible. Today, most artificial trees are manufactured around Yiwu, China.
The Impact
Beyond the delight of tradition and/or warding against evil spirits:
Having a real Christmas tree is generally less harmful than people assume. Christmas trees are typically grown on dedicated tree farms for 7-10 years, and replanted on rotation. During their growing years, they absorb carbon dioxide, stabilize soil and reduce erosion, and create a temporary wildlife habitat. Trees mulched or composted have a much lower footprint than those that end up in the landfill to belch methane.
If we’re keeping score here: a real tree, locally grown and composted, has a lower environmental impact choice than an artificial tree, unless the artificial tree is in annual rotation for over a decade.
HOW TO DISPOSE OF A (REAL) CHRISTMAS TREE
City of Austin folks with a curbside trash service:
Starting, December 26 have your tree at the curb by 5:30am on your compost collection day, and it will disappear as if by magic, but which is actually an operationally tedious system that greatly improves our entire societal existence.
Folks without a curbside trash service:
Zilker Park is a drop off site for your all-natural tree(s), wreath(s), and/or garland
Key dates: December 28 and January 3, 10:00am-2:00pm
Trees collected will become mulch, and will be available for free on a first-come, first-served basis beginning January 8 at 9:00am. BYOtools and storage containers for loading and hauling the repurposed holiday cheer
More info (and drop off locations) here!
Can you smell this photo?
HOW TO DISPOSE OF A(N IMPOSTER) CHRISTMAS TREE
If your artificial tree is still in working order:
Donating is your best bet—toss it on Buy Nothing, for free on Facebook Marketplace, or check with the church, hospital, and/or school in your part of town
If your artificial tree is completely toast:
Disassemble it, and haul it to the trash
If you can remove lights and wires, they may be more ethically disposed of at hardware stores in an e-waste bin. (This also goes for your fried holiday lights.)
A Novice Birder’s Interpretation of the “12 Days of Christmas”
For the record: six geese a-laying is not a gift from a lover.
Them’s fighting birds. I don’t recommend six laying waterfowl for anyone, enemies included. There’s a reason why the game Duck Duck Goose teaches children to run for their lives at the first hint of a goose.
If you wish to extend the holidays, boy do I have some news for you.
The twelve days of Christmas technically start today and end on January 5, (aka Twelfth Night), the traditional close of the Christmas season.
That leads us up to January 6, known as Epiphany or Three Kings Day, commemorating the wise men who brought a few symbolic gifts, but zero diapers. Have they ever met a baby?
Twelfth Night is a good excuse to remember Shakespeare’s comedy, which I’ll plug if you’re looking for love triangles, mistaken identities, a shipwreck, and the required reading that actually lands now that you’re older/wiser/potentially trying to stay sane during an extended unstructured phase of the holiday season
The Farmers’ Almanac has me believe that 5 Golden Rings could be interpreted as referring to goldspinks, a Scottish word for goldfinches, which would make the first seven gifts in the song entirely birds. This alternate version of the song thrilling, but ill-advised.
All this to say: it’s not too late to blast your most loathed enemies with a daily dose of bird commotion under the guise of affection this holiday season.
Frank Rumpenhorst via Getty Images
END OF YEAR MEGA POP QUIZ
How many of the following images can you identify?
How’d you do?
UPCOMING EVENTS
🗓️ December 26: Zilker Botanical Gardens: Free Day
🗓️ December 27: Make an Owl Nesting Box
🗓️ December 31: NYE at Auditorium Shores: The Head and the Heart is headlining, and there will be fireworks
🗓️ December 28: Tree recycling at Zilker, round 1
🗓️ January 3: Blacksmithing 101: for the folks who find themselves with an abundance of coal this time of year
🗓️ January 3: Tree recycling at Zilker, round 2
🗓️ January 7: Stargazing at Reimers Observatory (These book up quickly!)
🗓️ January 20: Close the Loop: I’m hosting this! It’s an admin night. Come to socialize AND knock out the To Do list
🗓️ Through February 1: Fortlandia
SEASONAL FLAIR
❄️ Ice Rodeo at Four Seasons through January 4
❄️ Bee Cave on Ice through January 19
❄️ Peppermint Parkway at COTA through January 4
❄️ Kitty Cohen’s Hanukkah Pop-Up Bar through January 2
❄️ Johnson City Lights Spectacular through January 3
❄️ Volente Lights on the Lake through January 4
LOCAL FARMERS’ MARKETS
👩🌾 Arboretum Food & Artisan Market Saturdays 11am-3pm
👩🌾 Barton Creek Farmers Market Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 Lakeline Farmers Market Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 SFC Farmers’ Market Downtown Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 SFC Farmers’ Market Sunset Valley Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 Texas Farmers’ Market at Bell Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 Texas Farmers’ Market at Mueller Sundays 10am-2pm
HOMEWORK
Consider: do you think you could do 1000 Hours outside next year?
That’s all for this week!
In the meantime, maybe just look at a bird with a lover instead of shoving an entire flock down the recipient’s throat?
-Nicole
OPTIONAL SIDE QUESTS
🪵 What’s this like for you? Email with your perspective.
🪵 Who should I collaborate with? Email with your recs!
🪵 Is this newsletter not your vibe? Forward it to your enemies to make them suffer too.
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