Krasnoyarsk woman shares 65-day Christmas tree care recipe

A real Christmas tree always comes with the fear of high maintenance — it will shed, dry out, create a needle apocalypse. But some Krasnoyarsk residents are willing to put up with this for the sake of the pine scent and the feeling of a real holiday.

“A real one is, of course, scary. It will always be scarier than an artificial one. But then you can feel how it smells — the whole house smells,” says the Krasnoyarsk woman, whose every morning since 30 December 2025 has begun the same way.

For almost half a month now, she has been spending about an hour to get the tree in order: watering, moisturizing, and literally “healing” it. Her love for real Christmas trees comes from childhood. The family lived in a small town in the middle of the tundra, and at the end of December her father would go out on skis and return “with a homely, scary little tree.” The whole family would decorate it, place it in a three-liter jar of water, and secure it to a stool with fishing line.

Now the tree stands have changed, but the ritual remains. Every year the hostess conducts an experiment — how long the tree can last without shedding. The record is 65 days. This year the “life extension” recipe is more complex: sand, water with aspirin, sugar, and a pinch of salt, daily spraying, and even an air humidifier — “specially for the tree.”

“I hate cooking. The only thing I’m willing to cook in the morning is the solution for the tree,” the girl laughs and admits that she seems to be becoming a “Christmas tree maniac.”

A special pride is the handmade glass ornaments from Krasnoyarsk. There aren’t many, they break, but that’s exactly where the magic lies: to cherish, take out, hang carefully, and every year add at least one new one.

What this morning ritual looks like, what exactly they water the tree with, and why it needs a humidifier — watch the video at the beginning of the article.