A handmade eco friendly Christmas tree for a greener Christmas


It's only November but most shopping malls already have their Christmas decorations up. Everywhere you go, there are promotion counters lining up on the terrace between shops, and promoters jumping at you trying to flog you cosmetics or spray some new "Christmas party" fragrances at you. I try very hard to decline nicely every time, but all I want to do is to walk through that walkway in peace, why can't I even do that? These people whom I call commodity owners, tend to think that the best way to sell their products is by having heavily-made-up promoters harassing us all the time. And they thought by doing so will get us all to buy!

Anyway, we can't have Christmas without a Christmas tree. People are discussing which tree to buy, a real one or a plastic one? What's the theme of the tree this year, green or gold, angels or baubles? How many boxes of tree decoration? Should there be a star or a Barbie angel on the tree top? Nope I can't afford that, and certainly won't want that either.

Getting a tree ready for Christmas is always a heart-warming one (if you do it with pure effort). But at times like this, what's more important is how ethical and eco-friendly my tree is. Real tree is nice, but chopping it down just for the season then discard it afterwards; although you can argue that they planted those trees just for this commercial purpose, I can't help but ask: what's the point?

So I've decided that I will have a tree this year, but I will MAKE one myself. After 3 fun-filled days, my humble little Christmas tree is finally up and warming the house in the night.

Material used for making the tree:

Base - wok packaging box wrapped in used kitchen foil
Trunk - wok packaging box
Tree - One-sided printed A3 paper pasted together with homemade corn starch glue
Baubles - bits & pieces of old Christmas cards, colour cards decorated with old craft pens, and foil cups
Star - used card wrapped in used kitchen foil
Angle lights - hand-me-down from a friend
Pressies behind the tree - wrapped in recycled gift wrapper saved from previous Christmases

The only thing bought new is the red ribbon that can be reused over and over again.

The whole point of this Christmas project is to minimise productivity and consumption during festive season, and to moderate unnecessary spending and wastage. I only spent less than £5 to have a pretty (though not entirely symmetrical) Christmas tree, and cleared some old clutter. What can be better than that?

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