Let It In, Light It Up: The Christmas Tree, Unwrapped🎄🕯️🪩 🎁
Did you know our Christmas tree of choice is an evergreen plant? 🌲
I didn’t!
It’s distinct from a deciduous tree. And like plants (because it is one), the Christmas tree is GREEN!
Water enables plants to produce and maintain chlorophyll — a green pigment found in the leaves of trees that absorbs red and blue wavelengths of light energy and, through a process called photosynthesis, converts that light energy into chemical energy — sugar — the fuel that sustains life. 💫
But how does sugar — sustain life?
The Sweet Truth 🍬🪴🎁
Fun fact: sugar is actually stored chemical energy derived from sunlight — which I like to think of simply as stored sunlight in our bodies. How cool! ☀️
Cells break sugar down and use it as fuel, while also storing it as energy reserves to power growth, repair, metabolism, reproduction, and survival. This embodied pantry of stored sunlight, if you will, comes in handy during winter, when light is less available for photosynthesis. ❄️
Without these reserves, cells couldn’t maintain structure.
Systems would shut down.
Life would stop.
As for why the kiddos love candy cane sugar — but then freak out after?
Let’s unwrap some sweet science 🍬🧬
Santa is the master delivery man this time of year — and we all appreciate his speed and the wrapping paper our gifts come in. But when it comes to sugar, faster isn’t better, and the wrapping paper is everything.
Candy canes deliver sugar quickly, and because they’re wrapped in plastic and stripped of fiber, they cause fast energy spikes followed by rapid crashes. Plant sugars, made through photosynthesis and wrapped in earth-conscious “wrapping paper” — fiber, water, and structure — are delivered more slowly, supporting steady energy over time.
The body evolved to process sugar wrapped in plants, not sugar wrapped in plastic.
Same sugar — one is metabolized in rhythm, the other outpaces the body’s design.
Who’s for ignoring this little factoid until after Christmas? 😉
That’s the difference — and the explanation — for candy’s roller coaster of emotions.
I see you, parents. 🙌
Let’s hear it for sugarrRrR 🍭🍒
(More on that in another blog)
The Enduring Evergreen 🙌
The difference between a deciduous and an evergreen plant is in how their leaves behave as a survival strategy.
Deciduous leaves are broad, porous, and water-releasing. They’re excellent at absorbing red and blue wavelength light energy for photosynthesis — but they also release a significant amount of water through their pores.
During winter, much of the available water is frozen in the soil, making it inaccessible to tree roots, so continued water loss through leaves would cause the tree to dry out and die.
So deciduous trees let go of their leaves to prevent dehydration and conserve energy until spring.
Evergreens do the opposite — they hang on! 🌲
Their leaves — needles, in this case — are thick, wax-coated, and water-conserving. That waxy coating prevents excess water loss and protects the tree from drying out, even in cold conditions.
As an aside, it’s quite fitting that the first lights ever placed on Christmas trees, documented in 17th-century Germany, were candles made of wax!🕯️
So during Christmastime, we celebrate the evergreen — a tree that endures a season most others don’t through its ability to:
conserve water, when it’s scarce
produce chlorophyll
absorb red and blue wavelength light energy, even when sunlight isn’t constant or abundant
transform that light energy into chemical energy (sugar)
and —
Mic drop. 🎤 Sustain life! 💫
Light’s a Trip 🪩
And as we all know, what we see isn’t always what we get…
From a color-spectrum perspective, we see what a surface doesn’t absorb — what’s left over → what’s reflected! 🪩
For example:
Leaves do absorb red and blue wavelength light energy — the colors we don’t see…
Leaves don’t absorb green wavelength light energy — the color we do see! 💚
How’s that for a mind trip?
The green we see on the evergreen plant is visible evidence that something beneath the surface is happening — that the tree is hydrated, has produced chlorophyll, and is ready to absorb light energy and convert it into life-sustaining energy to fuel our bodies.
And the key activating ingredient?
LIGHT! ☀️✨
Let there be light! 🎄
Let it in. Light it up. 🩷🪩
Random side note: did you know charcoal absorbs nearly all visible light, leaving nothing reflected — just black?
(More on that to come 😉)
As much of a Christmas tree lover as I am — and I am — I’m one of the approximately 25% of households that display more than one Christmas tree this year.
I’m concerned…
If the evergreen sustains life through a water and sunlight scarce winter by conserving water, producing chlorophyll, and enabling photosynthesis — once more, converting light energy into life-sustaining energy — why would we cut this tree, or this symbol of resilient life, down and bring it into our homes, effectively stopping that process altogether?
Make that make sense!
A Shout-Out to Real Christmas Trees 🎄
So check it — Christmas trees don’t only grow in the wild — they’re farmed! 🌲
About 80% of U.S. households — approximately 100 million homes — display a Christmas tree each year. Of those, only about 20% are real, while the other 80% — around 80 million trees — are synthetic.
Made of plastic and tracing their origins to 1930s brush-manufacturing technology originally used to make — wait for it… toilet-brush cleaners — an interesting plot twist, if you ask me! 😅
It takes about six years to grow a Christmas tree. And while growing, it absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen — the air we literally breathe.
Millions of farm-grown Christmas trees quietly do this work every year.
When one tree is cut, 1–3 new trees are planted in its place. And given trees are biodegradable — when the season has passed, and you’ve preserved a branch for your windowsill (if you so choose, like me 🌿) — they can be composted to nourish more life.
Christmas tree farms also support farmers’ livelihoods and help keep farmland green.
The Lesson 🩷
Evergreen trees teach us that letting go isn’t always the answer.
Sometimes, letting light in — and holding onto it — is.
Like water — may you let in what hydrates you.
Like chlorophyll — may you be ready for new possibilities.
Like wax — may you protect what’s precious inside of you.
Like needles — may you receive the light that sustains you.
Like the evergreen plant, may you weather any storm and remain optimistic that more light will come again soon.
Like the green we see on an evergreen — we’ll know there’s magic happening beneath your surface when we see your eyes twinkle and your teeth sparkle like lit candles on a Christmas tree.
And this season, may you and yours indulge in the seasonal tradition shared by millions — bring an evergreen tree into your home, light it up, and let it stand tall, ready on Christmas Eve — optimistic that Santa will be coming soon with gifts to place beneath it, so long as you’re ready to receive. 🎁
Whatever you’re celebrating this time of year, Happy Season to you!
For the Christians among us, I offer this scripture:
🎄 The Flourishing Tree — Jeremiah 17:7–8
“Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD…
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”Merry Christmas! 🎅✨🤶
Jessica Hansen, LMFT
Founder of CouplesTherapy.co 🍒🩷🪩🎄🕯️
🌟 A Light Disclaimer
For anyone quietly wondering if the zombie apocalypse is coming and “they” are somehow going to take the sun away and have us all living under heat lamps — here’s the deal:
Synthetic light only goes so far.
You can’t replace the sun — for plants or for humans — no matter how many LEDs you plug in.
The limits of synthetic light shine bright:
🌈 Incomplete spectrum
🕰 No natural rhythm
🌱 Weaker resilience
🧠 Human nervous-system disruption
🌍 Ecological disconnect
⚡ Massive energy cost
…and on and on and on.
Some things simply aren’t meant to be controlled.
And as far as I know, the sun is pretty hot and we haven’t landed on it just yet —
thank the Heavens for that! 🌟