Brigantine, New Jersey, holiday tradition continues in February
BRIGANTINE, N.J. (CBS) -- The holiday season is long over, but the spirit is alive and well in one Jersey Shore town -- at least when it comes to Christmas trees.
With a bed full of spruce, fir and pine trees, the City of Brigantine's Department of Public Works is heading to the beach on a chilly Wednesday morning.
"Yes, in Brigantine, it's become a tradition, you could say," DPW Superintendent John Doring said with a smile.
Doring is talking about Brigantine's recycled Christmas tree program.
"Instead of putting a beach fence down the middle here, we use the Christmas trees to help catch the sand and build the dunes," Doring said.
Truckload by truckload, a team of two braved the cold and carried, sometimes dragged, the dried-out trees into a gully-like spot in the dune off of 22nd Street.
"This started with the New Jersey Beach Buggy Association, back in the mid-70s," Doring said.
Doring added the city picked it up not long after, and has asked people to donate their trees – minus the lights and ornaments – for the last 30-plus years.
"This is the row of trees that we did last year. It runs probably four or five blocks to the south," Doring said pointing to an area the project impacted last year.
Each year, Public Works picks a spot in need and gets to work.
"We just place them here. And sand just goes through and gets caught by the trees and starts building the dunes," Doring said. "It works, and that's why we do it every year. Try to help protect the homes."
This year, some 1,500-2,000 trees were collected, Doring estimates. Public Works said they'll place them across multiple beach blocks, fortifying the dunes.
"We'll be doing this for probably two weeks," Doring said. "We get them from the residents on the island. We get them from some people that sell Christmas trees -- have extra Christmas trees, they drop them off to us."
The plan is to keep the tradition going for years to come. That is until…
"We run out of trees," Doring joked.
With this response, it doesn't look like that'll be happening any time soon.