Above you will see a picture of the first Christmas tree Wes and I ever put up as a married couple. Its an artificial tree, a hand-me-down from Wes’s mother. We didn’t have very many ornaments, but it was quite lovely to me. Unfortunately, we put it up the first year we were married, but after that we never put it up again.

Our first year of marriage was spent in an apartment with a large living room, but then we bought our own town-house that has much less space. Also, we are always with our families on Christmas day, and we have a cat that likes to tear paths destruction while we are away. The tree is just not very practical for us, and for the past three Christmases its been stored away and never used.

This year I decided to let someone else get good use out of it since we wouldn’t be. I posted it on Freecycle, and within 20 minutes I had a taker. Freecycle is a non-profit organization that sets up websites for communities to post and request discarded items. The idea is reduce the amount of stuff that goes to landfills by giving it to someone who can use it. I’ve posted quite a few bits and bobs on Freecycle, but this is the biggest item by far.

The family who will be using my Christmas tree this year is a family of six, mom, dad, and 4 kiddos, who have been hit by the recession. The dad lost his job and had to start a new one, while the mom has been out of work since she had to quit due to a high-risk pregnancy. As they said in their email, they weren’t planning on getting a tree this year since it would take away from the number of gifts they could afford to give their children. Now they’ll have a free tree and some lights to go along with it. If you had some old Christmas decorations you were thinking of getting rid of, then I really encourage you to put it on Freecycle. You never know what value someone else may get from what you no longer need.