New Orleans’ dead Christmas trees given new life deep in the bayou

It’s a bird … it’s a plane … if it’s in New Orleans, it’s just a Black Hawk airdropping Christmas trees.

By: Matt Hickman

 Operation Christmas Tree Drop with the Louisiana National Guard at Bayou Sauvage in New Orleans. (Photo: Master Sgt. Toby M. Valadie/Louisiana National Guard Public Affairs Office)

New Orleans is a city that has long marched to the beat of a different drummer — a flamboyant, fabulously attired and slightly inebriated drummer.

It shouldn’t be a surprise then that the age-old tradition of the Big Easy doing things its own special way extends to Christmas tree disposal.

That said, New Orleans doesn’t necessarily deviate from other major cities when it comes to the collection of thousands upon thousands of de-tinseled fir trees. Per the Department of Sanitation, residents of Orleans Parish are asked to place their old trees — stripped of all ornamentation, of course — curbside on regularly scheduled trash pickup days. Nothing unusual with that. It’s what happens next, after the trees are collected and spirited away by sanitation workers, that’s unique. Read more.