Don’t just recycle your tree, throw it in a competition and impress your friends with your butch strength.
By Nicole Buckler
Members of the public, every year, are invited to break a unique Guinness World Record as well as drop off their Christmas tree for recycling. This usually happens on the second week of January at a park in Ennis, Clare.
The annual event turns Christmas tree recycling into a sport, while at the same time raise funds for a needy cause. This event is getting bigger every year. But it is still small enough that weaklings from all over the country can still be in with a chance. Pick up your tree and practice on your driveway with the greatest of urgency, readers.
The Championship is based on age-old lumberjack traditions. And seeing as lumberjacks and hipsters are largely interchangeable these days, this event is definitely in fashion.
Members of the public (you) will compete to achieve the longest distance for throwing a standard 1.5 metre tree. There will be trophies for the longest throw in various age categories with a trophy for the overall champion. And what is more sexy than a butch hipster with a trophy? Nothing. Nothing at all.
Previous champions include Limerick man John O’Dea, who threw his Christmas tree a winning distance of 8.6 metres, an Irish record he first set in 2014. We can only assume that this man now has knickers thrown at him when he is walking down the street in Ireland.
Stephen Hayes of Ennis competing in the Irish Christmas Tree Throwing Championships last year. Credit: Eamon Ward
Competitors arrive from the four corners of Ireland and further afield, and anyone can take part. The event is open to men, women and children, and each contestant will be afforded three attempts at throwing the Christmas tree. If you are single, you have three attempts to avoid Tinder or Grindr and actually meet someone who is impressed with your biceps. Do you even throw, dude?
Disposing of your tree is usually a godawful boring task that has to be done right after the trauma of eating yourself into a food coma and having to return to work. But now, it can be fun and it might even get you an impressed lover. After you drag your stupid, brown, needleless tree to the competition, the council will pulp your tree for you for free and use the woodchips to fertilise public gardens. And who knows, they may even smoke the wood chips but they deserve it after coming up with this highly prestigious international event.
Be there or be square.
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