It's that time... 'tis the season to clean your house from the holidays, and take down the Christmas tree. You may be one of those who leaves the decorations up for the entire month of January. And that's fine — as long as you don't want to miss the free Christmas tree pickup that the City of Beacon provides. It starts on January 5, 2017, and concludes at the end of January.

How to Prepare Your Christmas Tree for Pickup

Yes, there is a best way, as well as a worst way, to get your Christmas tree outside for the garbage pickup. Here is the advice from Beacon's Highway Department:

• Remove all ornaments and lights. The Christmas trees get recycled into wood chips at Beacon's Transfer Station, which was known as The Town Dump until recently.
• Lie the Christmas tree down flat. Standing Christmas trees that lean up against a fence could get overlooked by the Highway Department while they drive by looking for Christmas trees to pick up.
•  If you see a red truck in your neighborhood, get your tree curbside - quick!

The Highway Department gets assigned to a grid of the city each day. When they are not super busy with other projects, assigned trucks will drive around a grid of town for the day. So if you see a truck in your area, get on it and get that tree outside. If you don't see a truck in your area, get the tree outside anyway, and it will most likely get picked up soon.