Ernest Prim - stock.adobe.com Festive households rush to put up their Christmas trees ... warns against keeping a live tree indoors for more than a month because drying needles pose a fire hazard.

Although you should take precautions to avoid igniting surrounding brush or dry grass from escaped sparks, you can choose to burn your Christmas ... trash pick-up might have a tree pick-up program ...

Why, every Christmas, do so many people endure the mess of dried pine needles ... the world’s oldest religious traditions. To give up the tree would be to give up a ritual that predates ...