When the American family gathers to open presents on 24 December it may look at its colourfully decorated, natural or plastic, Christmas tree with new eyes. For weeks, the “O Christmas Tree” debate has been playing on TV and radio as incessantly as the song. Bursting the boundaries of “real or artificial,” the positions are more political than ecological.

Growers’ group National Christmas Tree Association (NCTA) may have had little idea of the backlash it would generate in enlisting the Agriculture Department’s help for an image campaign. In the conservative media, the 15-cent per tree levy growers would pay to finance the advertising was turned into “Obama’s war on Christmas” and fit perfectly with its own persistent attack on the politically correct expression “holiday tree.”

Republican-leaning think-tank Heritage Foundation summed up conservatives’ view – “With 9% of Americans out of work, is a tax on the American Christmas tree the best the president can do?” Liberals and conservatives, ecologists and free-traders decried the fact that over 80% of artificial trees are not only plastic, but made in China, where most electricity is generated by burning coal, and no Americans work. NCTA slammed the “giant green toilet bowl brush that has more plastic than Pamela Anderson.”

As agriculture officials backed away – after all, 2012 is an election year – serious media resumed the ecology debate: Real trees need pesticides and can be mulched, plastic trees (mostly PVC, recently also PE) need chemical flame retardants and can be recycled – or not.

Americans weary of the debate who have nothing against creativity in plastic might visit London, where a giant Lego tree graces St. Pancras station. Or Kanaus / Lithuania where a tree made of 40,000 recycled bottles is on display.