Christmas trees, mice, & other living things: your holiday will be merry and bright with a tree that's healthy for you and the Earth.

Last year, a few days before Christmas, my wife woke me up in a panic. "Curtis! Curtis! Get up--I hear a noise, get up!!" What was unusual was--this time there was a noise.

We crawled out into the cold morning to investigate. The sound increased with each step. We followed our ears from the bedroom down the hall and into the living room. Our Christmas tree stood sentinel there, its soft branches covering our presents like a mother hen. Its ornaments and crowning angel glinted with the first morning light. The house was still, which made the sound--a crunching sound--seem extraordinarily loud. Then we saw her: a mouse, a very pretty brown scared mouse, for she had now seen us. She stood stock still. Nestled in the bluegreen needles of the fir, she might have been just another ornament--a very hungry one! A holly leaf made of shellacked dough hung just in front of her, and part of the leaf and a few berries had been gnawed off.

We named her "The Christmas Mouse" and throughout the week had fun making up stories of her exploits. We never saw her again, but her small legacy has become another story added to that long line of stories we call tradition.

The tradition of bringing an evergreen into a home has pagan roots thousands of years old. Christians in Germany did it 400 years ago. Hessian mercenaries are thought to be the first in America. In 1804, they raised a tree in their barracks near present day Chicago. By 1900, one in every, five American families decorated an evergreen, and by 1930 a Christmas tree was found in almost every household.

Until the mid-20 century, most Americans cut their own tree or purchased one that was forest-grown. Now, Christmas trees are grown on plantations. North Carolina is the nation's number two producer, with over 50 million trees on 25,000 acres. Drive through any of the state's far western counties and you will see rows of Frasier Firs stretching from creek bottoms to hilltops, their blue-green foliage standing out against the bare ground. Bare ground, you ask? Yes, bare ground.

Unbeknownst to many people, Christmas tree production is a chemically intensive operation. Herbicides are the most visible chemicals used. Grass and weeds are suppressed from early spring to fall through a combination of pre-emergent and post-emergent products. Mites and aphids are controlled using an organophosphate. The organophosphate family is on the EPA's short list of "soon to be banned"; however, the agribusiness industry works hard to ensure that this ban does not happen.

Manmade nitrogen fertilizers may well be the most destructive chemicals used on tree farms. Petroleum-derived nitrogen is highly water soluble with 50% potentially ending up in our streams and creeks. Nitrogen is typically applied at 100 lbs. per acre. One hundred times 25,000 acres is a lot of pollution.

With all that said, here's the positive news. The North Carolina Department of Agriculture has been working with tree growers to lessen their environmental impact. And a handful of growers have taken a risk, shed all the chemicals, and attempted to grow Fraser Firs organically. I am one of those growers.

Eight years ago, I planted my first crop of chemical-free trees. Since I had no predecessors, the learning curve has been steep. Help has come from a very supportive community of organic farmers, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, and the State of North Carolina. The Mitchell County Agricultural Extension Service and State Christmas tree specialists have worked together with me, and their help has been indispensable. We should all be heartened by the fact that State and Federal agricultural employees are actively supporting organic agriculture.

Celebration of the holiday season with an organic Christmas tree is one of many steps in making one of America's favorite traditions healthier for people, streams ... and little brown mice.

Curtis Buchanan lives in Jonesborough, TN and owns Glen Ayre Tree Farm in Mitchell County, NC, the first certified organic Christmas tree farm in the United States. He can be reached at 423-753-5160 or [e-mail].