The holidays are behind us, and the Christas decorations -- including those beautiful Christmas trees, are coming down.

Curbside Christmas tree pickup began on Jan. 2 and will continue through Friday, Jan. 11. This is the easiest way to dispose of your tree and have it recycled. And leaving a tree up while it is dry can cause fires.

Massachusetts residents buy about a million live cut Christmas trees each year, according to MassDEP.

"Simply throwing them away would not only be a waste of reusable resources, but a disposal problem. If all the cut trees sold in Massachusetts this holiday season were packed tightly together on their sides, they could fill every square foot of a major regional shopping mall to a height of 15 feet, or create a pile that would rise ten stories and span a football field from one goal post to the other," says the DEP Web site.

Here are some tips for disposing of your tree:

• Remove the ornaments before disposing of the tree.
• Keep a bucket near the tree to dump the water out from the tree stand.
• Cover the tree with a large plastic bag before removing it to prevent needles and sap from causing a big mess in your home.
• When you leave your tree at the curb, make sure it is not obstructing any roadways.