The holidays are the most wonderful time of year, unless you are the planet. To get to actual holiday joy, you’ve got to tear through several layers of waste: Disposable wrapping, frilly ribbons, packing tape, wads of plastic shopping bags, mountains of clamshell packaging, and crappy lights that didn’t even make it to Christmas eve.

Christmas trees are wonderful and cosy and festive, but they’re also damn expensive, at a time of year when most of us are already struggling not to blow our budgets.

Choosing between real and artificial Christmas trees largely comes down to personal preference: do you want that cosy pine smell and hellacious clean-up, or built-in lights with no personal touch but nary a needle on the floor? Personal preference aside, though, there's someone else who probably cares: Mother Earth.

It's that time of year again. The air is warm, it's still bright at 7PM, and for those that celebrate, it is time to get a Christmas tree. Whether you believe that Santa is coming down the chimney; a Soviet era Grandfather Frost and his trusty chaperon, the Snow Maiden, are coming to visit your non-denominational "New Year's tree"; or that the Bishop of Turkey is going to swing by for a little eggnog, you are going to want that tree smelling and looking good all month. Here's how to keep those needles hydrated through Krampus Night and into Christmas Day.

Full Christmas trees look great, but they can be a pain when it comes to watering them.