My parents' Christmas tree had already needles on Christmas Eve, although it had only just been cut down.

The beige Christmas tree ceiling underneath was covered with piles of green every evening, the vacuum cleaner ran and ran.

My mother wanted to throw the tree off the balcony right after New Year's Eve, preferably into the neighboring garden, like in an advertisement for a Swedish furniture store.

Who was to blame for the needle disaster?

There were suspicions and conjectures.

Only the tree stood bare and was silent.

Andrew Frey

Freelance author in the science section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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On New Year's Day, when I was visiting the grandparents with the children, I had resolved not to bring up the subject. Then I saw him at the end of the living room, right by the window, colorful and bright, like the elephant in the room you don't want to see. Just ignore it, I thought, shut up. "Actually a pretty tree," I blurted out at some point, beautifully pyramid-shaped. New Year was over.

Since then I have had to think about this tree every day.

If I looked into our living room, I saw my parents' tree, although ours didn't needle at all, but came from the same field.

Until I read about the annual planning of the district forester in the neighboring town in the local newspaper.

The man not only relied on his specialist knowledge, one could learn there, but also on the forest lunar calendar.

Depending on the phase of the moon, wood is protected from rotting, the forester explained, and – watch out!

– pine branches lost fewer needles.

Was that the explanation?

Was my parents' Christmas tree simply cut down on the wrong day?

Belief in the moon instead of modern meteorology

If you follow this thesis, it not only makes a difference when you fell a tree, but also when you plant or cut one. The ideal time for planting is said to be on the waxing moon in Virgo, while felling is best done on the waning moon with Pisces or on the new moon. For gardening in winter, this means: hedges should be trimmed in the last days of January and February so that they don't grow back as much. However, exact planting or felling dates differ depending on the doctrine, and that alone reveals the nonsense behind it. A tree doesn't care where the moon is. In my opinion, this labeling should be outlawed as fraud: Mondholz achieves significantly higher prices, and some hotels also advertise such facilities,although it has not yet been possible to prove its special quality - with scientific methods, of course. In this respect, communities whose foresters work the forest according to the lunar calendar should review their recruitment criteria. Is that too hard? Perhaps. The moon believers that I know are mostly down-to-earth and earthbound people, but belief in the influences of the moon has a stronger effect than scientific facts. And behind this worldview lurk conflicts that are now showing up, for example, in the form of a lack of willingness to vaccinate. But that's not the only problem: I know farmers who still base their work on the phases of the moon, even though advances in meteorology allow for up to a week's worth of field planning. No one needs to be surprised by the weather these days.

As for the Christmas tree, it's best to cut it down just before the festival;

for moon believers, Christmas Eve is the perfect date this year.

By the way, strong needling can be prevented above all by not forgetting the water in the Christmas tree stand.

Don't worry, won't tell dad.

Garbage pickup came on Monday.