In about a week, after all of the Christmas presents have been opened, reasons to leave the intricately decorated Christmas tree up in the living room will have passed.

For those of you who use a fake tree, the answer is simple, pack it up in the closet and hope it’s still in good shape by the next holiday season.

But real trees can’t be folded and packed into a box nor would you want to, so you may begin to consider what to do with your once live conifer.

Burning it may come to mind, and while that may be an option if you don’t live in the city limits and have plenty of space to ensure you don’t start a forest fire, be sure not to do so in a fireplace.

Christmas trees, like most pines, contain a lot of sap, which can build up on the walls of your fireplace and eventually lead to a hazardous fire.

If you live in the city, burning anything is typically restricted and requires a permit from the fire department.

The best method to dispose of a Christmas tree is to chip it into mulch if you have a chipper.

If you don’t own a chipper, you can bring it to the county dump yourself, or set it at the roadside for pickup by city employees.

Public Works Director Eric Morris asks city residents to alert his office when they put any debris by the roadside.

That way a work order can be filed and the debris will be removed in a timely manner.

Under the current workload, Morris estimates it will take up to 10 days, maybe less, for a debris pile to be picked up after the work order is called in. City residents can add their debris pile to the list of work orders by dialing 311, or 601-799-0602.

Collected trees and other vegetative debris are eventually taken to Central Landfill in Millard.