Santa Barbara Woman gives new life to donated Christmas trees

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - In Christmases past, most people throw away their Christmas trees. One Santa Barbara woman is collecting and replanting donated Christmas trees to give them a Christmas future.

Carina Powers had the idea two years ago to replant her Christmas Tree. She loved the idea so much that she made a post on Facebook asking people for their old small Christmas Trees.

In 2020, her post garnered seven small donated Christmas trees. That same year her daughter was born and she had the idea that it would be fun that one year her daughter could cut down one of the replanted Christmas trees.

In 2022, Powers made another post asking for people to donate their small Christmas trees.

"We were out of the country last year, but I was like, let's just do it again. And this year I have over 30 messages and addresses!" 

Powers and her family currently live in Santa Barbara and have a ranch in Buellton. She says that her whole hillside on her ranch is planted with Christmas trees. 

This year she was able to pick up ten Christmas trees and she says people are loving this idea.

"Like last year someone wrote me a handwritten card and left a cookie out with the tree. And it's just been really fun to see how nice everyone is. This year I searched and found the people from 2020 and sent them like a little report card with pictures of their trees and they got to see how much they've grown," said Powers. 

Daryush Nourbaha and his wife saw the Facebook post this year and donated their tree. 
"We just thought it was so cool that there's this local farm that's being really sustainable and green for a community taking these trees that we loved and used for the holidays and repurposing them in this great way so that the last another year and then another year," said Nourbaha.
Power says she hopes to make this a Christmas tradition every year. She says her family will wait until her two-year-old daughter is older before cutting down one of the donated Christmas trees.
Nourbaha says if Powers does do this again next year that his family will donate their tree again.
If you would like to donate your small Christmas Tree, please email Powers at carina@phonicsinmotion.com.