When is the right time to get a Christmas tree?

[bibliophage]

It seems to me that more and more people are getting their Christmas trees right after Thanksgiving. This just seems wrong to me. When I was growing up, we never had a tree until about the 17th or 18th of December. If we were having Christmas at my grandmother's house, we wouldn't put one up for her until we got there, usually the the 23d or 24th. I have my great-grandfather's diaries from around 1915, and he usually got his around the 23d of December.

I still don't have a tree. I tend to get one a little earlier than when I was growing up, but only because people who come to visit seem so shocked when I don't get one early. It's easier just to get one a little earlier than I'd like than to keep explaining myself.

When do you get yours, and is it earlier than when you were a kid?

[Lsura]

When I was a kid, we usually got ours sometime in the week before Christmas, but it didn't get taken down until January 6th(the whole epiphany thing). Everyone seems to think that was late to get one.

Now, well, I admit, I have never had a tree of my own. IT seems sort of useless since I live alone, travel a lot, and go to my parents for christmas. But, mom, since purchasing a fake tree, seems to put it up earlier each year. I think she put it up right after Thanksgiving this year, although she says it's not completely decorated yet.

Thanksgiving is just too early to put up a tree. It's like christmas decorations at the mall in October.

[whiterabbit]

When I was living at home, we usually got one about the time school got out, about a week or so before Christmas. I think it'd be flat DANGEROUS to have a live tree up for the whole month. Talk about a fire hazard! Mom's always been a bit paranoid about fire, so we always had very well-watered trees. I'm not sure if they get a tree now, but I think they have a fake one. I'm going to Grandma's anyway, and I KNOW she'll have one.

I keep going out of state every Christmas so I don't get one for myself. Besides, my cat would rip it to bits. The cat is more important to me than a tree.

[delphica]

I think the "right" time is whenever it makes you happy to put a tree up.

I put ours up around the 15th or so, and take it down on Epiphany (Jan. 6). I suspect Mr. Del would put it up around Labor Day, if left to his own devices.

For me, Thanksgiving would be too early to put up a tree, but I imagine some people might like to do it then because you have that extra time off work, and putting up a tree is a big project, whether it's going out and shopping for a real one, or dragging out the fake one and assembling it.

Growing up, we would put it up around the time that school ended, like whiterabbit mentioned. Now, since my adult siblings and I don't usually get home until just before Christmas, we'll put up my mom's tree on Christmas Eve. This is sort of fun, we listen to Christmas records (yes, records! The christmas music from my childhood just wouldn't sound the same without all those snaps and pops) and bicker about whose 4th grade paper mache ornament is the best.

[lolagranola]

We put ours up every year on December 1st. If it was JUST up to me, I'd probably put it up Christmas Eve. Then again, procrastination is my life, and I'm not big on Christmas.

[samclem]

The last 5 years or so, we have cut our tree ourselves. I would always prefer to do so about the week before Christmas, but lately, have been so disappointed in the selection that remains. And it gets worse every year. We are on the way out this afternoon, hoping to not be disappointed.

Along with being astounded at the folks who have to get their tree up over Thanksgiving weekend, I deplore the "Griswoldian" rush to lavishly decorate the outside of one's home with megawattage enough to power a small country. All by the Friday after Thanksgiving!

[Johnny L.A.]

I think it'd be flat DANGEROUS to have a live tree up for the whole month.
Well it's not really a live tree, is it? I don't believe in killed trees, so every year for the past three years (I didn't have trees before that after I left home) I buy a living xmas tree. After the holidays, I give the tree to whoever wants it. The first one is alive and well in a coworker's back yard. The second person said the tree died. The third tree is on a cabinet in my box -- er, cubicle -- at work (no one would see it if it were at home) and will be given to a coworker later.

Global warming has been in the news recently. The United States are in favour of planting new forests, but the European countries oppose this because they don't have the space to reforest. If I heard the reports right, then this issue was what caused a breakdown in the treaty talks.

How many families are there in the U.S.? A hundred million? What if every family bought a live tree instead of a killed one or an artificial one, and then had them planted after the holidays? (People without the space to plant them could donate them to an organization that will plant them.) And what if they did this every year? That's 100,000,000 new trees every year, many of which would survive!

[fish in the sky]

Live trees are definatly way cool. If I had my own tree that's what I'd get, but I go to my parents for Christmas, and they like to get a big-ass tree cut fresh from the field. I actually tried to talk them into a live tree last year, but, no luck.

We usually get the tree about a week or two before Christmas, and take it down whenever someone gets around to it, usually a week or so after Christmas.

My mom once told me when she was growing up (in the 1950s) they wouldn't get a tree until Christmas Eve day; they'd go to her uncle's farm and cut one from the woods, take it home and decorate it that night.

This year I saw some places selling trees before Thanksgiving. I don't understand why anyone would want a tree so damn early. That thing would be brown and crumbly by Christmas. You'd have to get another tree mid-December if you wanted it to look decent and not risk burning down your house.

[whiterabbit]

I kind of look at it this way -- those trees were specifically grown to be cut. It's not like everybody goes out into a forest and cuts their own tree.

If I end up staying home for a Christmas I will probably buy a small artificial tree that can be moved to whatever room I am currently occupying so I can keep the cat off it.

And to use your term, which is more direct I admit, I still think having a cut tree in one's living room for an entire month is kind of silly, and certainly a hazard. By Christmas you have a brownish tree that is dropping needles EVERYWHERE.

[Johnny L.A.]

I kind of look at it this way -- those trees were specifically grown to be cut. It's not like everybody goes out into a forest and cuts their own tree.
True. So the net gain is zero. If people bought living trees we would be A) Adding more C02 scrubbers to the environment; B) Adding habitat for many species of animals; and C) Adding forested areas for people to enjoy.

The tradition of bringing an evergreen into one's home began as a symbol of life, even in the depths of winter. What better symbold than one that continues to live after the winter?

(Besides, if you donate your living tree to a tree-planting organization, it might be tax deductable.)

[Gunslinger]

We've always put up our fake tree (I had bad allergies when I was little; now it's just 'cause it's convenient) on or around my mom's birthday (Dec. 13) and take it down the weekend of/after Jan. 1.




The best time to get a tree would be the first week of the next year...it'd be cheaper, anyway. :D

[Falcon]

Well, I *wanted* to get a tree this weekend, but I couldn't find any nice 4 foot trees. Hopefully Home Depot will have one tomorrow.....*sighs*

[PaperBlob]

When I was growing up, we alternated between real and artificial trees, and put the tree up a week or two before Christmas. My wife and kids insist on doing things earlier though. Also, samclem is right - the longer you wait to cut your own tree, the worse the selection. Our schedule:

Day after Thanksgiving: decorate the inside of the house;

First warmish day after Thanksgiving: put up outside lights;

First Saturday in December: slay and decorate tree;

New Years Day: take it all down.

A couple of posters have mentioned that they keep their trees up until Epiphany; I'd be interested in hearing how late others take their trees down. A friend of mine's wife would keep their tree up until Easter, I think. He doesn't even begin negotiating with her about it until February!

[runner pat]

My wife and I always get our tree the 2nd weekend of Dec. and it comes down Jan 2. always cut a live tree and it stays fresh the whole time if we keep it well-watered.

[MissDiagnosis]

Well, when I was a kid, we used to always put up our tree on 12/16, because that was my parents' anniversary. But, alas, since they "Parted Company" a few years ago, I put my tree up Thanksgiving weekend, simply because I take the cheater's way out and have found the wonderful world of synthetic pine! Besides, that is usually the only weekend I have four days off in a row in which to mess with it! BTW, I actually had help with the tree this year in the form of a husband! This is our first Christmas together, and we are still trying to find that blinking strand of lights!!!
Happy Holidays To All!!!!!!!!!!
Sassy

[Byzantine]

Seriously, don't get a tree. I know, I know, they have "special" tree farms just for Christmas trees but really... you are killing a tree to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ... it just seems very wrong to me...

Sigh

I have a fake tree that's about 4 feet tall. I got it at the DI for about six dollars almost 10 years ago. It really looks crummy until I deck it out with all the wonderful ornaments I've collected over the years. Like my nephew's hand print, my mom's crocheted blue ball and .... well, they don't go together, really, but somehow, on that sad little Charlie Brown Christmas tree, they look better than any decorator tree in the world...

Oh, and I put mine up the day after Thanksgiving and take it down the day after New Year's.

P.S. Johnny L.A. I KISS you! And you too, Gunslinger!

[flodnak]

When I was a kid the tree and other decorations went up the third Sunday of Advent (cleaning and other preparations took place on the Saturday just before). Since my family was Catholic, this was easy for even a kid to keep track of: the day they first light the pink candle at church, it's time to put up the tree! Woohoo! Decorations came down on the Epiphany.

Now that I am, aherm, "culturally Catholic" (I've turned humanist on them but still enjoy some of the traditions of my childhood), I still try to keep to that schedule. This year, since Advent is late, I relented and put up the tree yesterday, although it's the second Sunday of Advent. It was for our older boy's benefit; he's seriously bummed out that there is no snow yet, and impatient for it to be Christmas. The tree makes waiting a little easier for him. The other decorations will go up little by little as I have the time and inclination. The whole mess will stay up until the Epiphany.

We're also proud members of the Fake Tree Brigade.

[Johnny L.A.]

P.S. Johnny L.A. I KISS you!
:o

[MissDiagnosis]

Originally posted by Byzantine
Seriously, don't get a tree. I know, I know, they have "special" tree farms just for Christmas trees but really... you are killing a tree to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ... it just seems very wrong to me

I was just wondering if you thought it wrong to bake a ham or turkey? And, speaking of Jesus, isn't he thought to have been "asleep in a manger on the "hay"!" How do you think Hay is made? They cut it and bail it! (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is ALIVE when it is cut!) Just a thought from the scary depths of my mind to yours!:)

[Johnny L.A.]

I was just wondering if you thought it wrong to bake a ham or turkey?
This is why I'm not a vegetarian, which I was for a little while. I considered the idea of vegetarianism and came to the conclusion that "life" is life, whether it comes from an animal or a plant. We can put all the necessary chemicals together, but we can't make a potato from them because we can't give it "life". So I decided that if it's okay to kill a plant for food, then it must be okay to kill animals for food. (I know there are posters who will disagree with me.)

So why not kill a tree? It's often necessary. For example, we build houses with them. A house is worth the death of a living organism, which is a tree. But I don't like the idea of killing a tree just for decoration. Would you kill a cat just for its pelt? Kill a deer just so you can hang its head on your wall? I know some people, trophy hunters, do the latter. But I don't think it's right to hunt for trophies. Killing for food is okay. Killing to protect yourself; for example, from someone who is going to do you harm, or to keep ants out of your food, is okay. But stepping on a spider you happen to see in your garden is not. (Exception: Dangerous spiders such as black widows or brown recluse.)

For me, killing a tree, which will not be put to any practical use and will just be a decoration, is wrong. I came to this conclusion when I was a teen. Dad and I cut two small trees on my grandfather's property. He lived in a forest. There were lots of trees. But later it occurred to me that these trees had been growing peacefully for a few years. We came and killed them. As I thought about it, I thought of all of the farm-raised trees that were growing peacefully, then cut down just so people could bring their carcasses into their homes. Am I being over-sensitive? Probably. But this is the decision I came to. Your mileage may vary.

[MissDiagnosis]

Just a question, Johnny...do you have a girlfriend or wife? If so, do you ever give her flowers? Well, while terribly romantic, you are in-fact KILLING THEM!

Also. I know several people who have fireplaces and use their tree for fire wood after Christmas. Not to mention, lots of people have wood chipping machines, and will find a "practical use" for their tree after the season.

Me, I go with the artifical tree...not because of global warming, but because I am very lazy about keeping it watered!!!

Sassy

[Johnny L.A.]

Sassy, there are incosistencies and contradictions in every belief system. I choose to buy living xmas trees, and I encourage other people to do the same; but I'm not going to get upset if people want to use cut trees.

FTR: I do not have a girlfriend, but when I did I gave her things more permanent than flowers.

[ladybug]

Originally posted by bibliophage
When do you get yours, and is it earlier than when you were a kid?

We had an artificial tree when I was a kid, so I think we used to put it up much earlier than we do now, probably around the first weekend in December.

Now we get our tree after I come home for the semester, because my mom knows that I love going with everyone to help pick one out. Also she wants to make sure that the tree is really fresh. I think in the past few years we've gotten our tree between the 15th and 20th of December, and it stays up until January 6.

One of my friends told me that her mother puts up their tree (artificial) around Halloween. If that's what they like then that's what they should do, but I think I'd be sick of the decorations by Christmas. Kind of like when the local Wal-Mart puts the Christmas displays up at the end of August.

[BiblioCat]

This does not apply to "living" trees or the trees you cut yourself, but:
Just FTR, if you buy an already-cut tree from a lot, you are better off getting it early and getting it in the water at home. Most of those trees are cut at the same time, so waiting till right before Christmas, to get a "fresher" one isn't necessarily best. They get watered a little on the lot (if at all).

Your best bet is to go ahead and get your tree, take it home and cut off about 2 inches from the bottom, get it in the stand with lots of water and keep it watered.

If you go to a lot the week before Christmas, in the hopes that you will get a tree that has just been cut, you are wrong. The trees have most likely been sitting there or on a truck for a couple weeks and are drier and therefore more of a fire hazard.


Complete hijack, inspired by SassyKYredhead and JohnnyLA:
I went to college with a girl who was a vegetarian on the grounds that she didn't want "any living thing to die" just so she could eat. She was very emphatic that "no living thing" (thing, not creature) should die for her. I always wondered how she justified killing all those innocent vegetables and fruits. ;)

[Jophiel]

In defense of cut trees:

First of all, as most of you know, Christmas trees are grown as a crop. It's not like someone is clear-cutting a mountainside in Nova Scotia for your Douglas fir. It takes about five to seven years to grow a typical Christmas tree. More if you are getting one of the 12' trees or something, but I'm talking the typical 5-8' tree. In this time, the tree is producing a large amount of oxygen due to its rapid growth and is providing a habitat for wildlife. Heck, at my company (landscaping), we can't have a bunch of balled and burlaped trees sitting around for a week before birds nest in them, rabbits hop around them and it generally looks like Wild Kingdom in the nursery. I can only imagine what square miles of Christmas tree farm looks like. Yes, the trees get cut down, but not all at one time and habitat is maintained.

The other big issue is cost. There's a reason why a five foot white pine in the Christmas tree lot costs $40.00 and a five foot white pine at the landscape nursery costs $110.00. Because Christmas trees are considered a "crop", they get all sorts of benefits from the government that landscape growers don't get (the Dept. of Agriculture counts landscape plants and crop plants as seperate things, regardless of whether or not you're discussing the exact same genus and specie of plant). If you want to start a farm in Illinois, you can buy evergreen saplings at the price of 15 cents each. Mind you, they have to be used for Christmas trees and if you sell one as a live tree the DoA can fine you, and the tree purchaser, $5000 each for each tree sold. To buy saplings for a nursery, you don't get the benefit of purchasing them through the state and each one will run you several bucks. In other words, it's not economically fesible for everyone to buy a live tree, nor for places to try to grow and sell them. And of course, not everyone has a place to plant a live tree so either they buy artifical or cut. If you disallow cut trees, you lose the benefits listed in the first paragraph.

Finally, the survival rate of live Christmas trees is dismal. If you live in a northern climate, you need to have your conifers in the ground well before Christmas. Once the soil freezes, the tree can not put out roots into the soil, nor will it do so while it is dormant in the cold. However, since it doesn't lose its leaves (needles), the wind continues to blow over the leaf surfaces, pulling out water and dehydrating the tree. I'm not saying it's impossible to do (with lots of water, anti-dessicants and care) but if the rate was above 25% survival, I'd be amazed. Paying out over a hundred dollars for a 5' Christmas tree that will lead to having to dig a hole in the frozen earth and then removing a dead 5' tree from the backyard doesn't sound like a great deal of fun to me ;)

Oh, and I'll probably be getting my tree next weekend. I usually get a fraiser fir. Excellent needle retention and I like the shape of them. Easily my favorite Christmas tree.

[samclem]

I always wondered how she justified killing all those innocent vegetables and fruits

Remember that great line--"I'm not a vegetarian because I respect animals, but, rather that I hate vegetables." ;)

[Tapioca Dextrin]

Originally posted by bibliophage

When do you get yours, ?

I plan to get mine the day I turn 50

[samclem]

My kids and I cut down that white pine yesterday. About 7 feet tall, and $22. here in Akron, OH. The same place we have cut for 4 years. That same tree the last few years has been $30-35. And my ex-SO experienced a similar price drop at the place where she got hers.

Gotta be some benefits of living here.

[handy]

A 6 ft tree here is $100.00 With those needles that point up, douglas fir?

In our thrift shop a fake 6 ft tree is $5.00-$7.00 used.
Spray it with Pine Sol & youll have a great tree you can give back to the shop.

[Byzantine]

sassyKYredhead – do I think it's wrong to bake a ham or turkey? No, I don't. You eat them. How many times have you eaten a Christmas tree? NEVER?! Gee! So, it's something you do not "need" in any way, shape, or form but you feel a media-market driven "false need" to have one? How very sad for you! Does it hurt to have your mind so controlled by others?

And if "killing hay" is your "deep" mind altering equivalent to killing a tree than thank you for caring but fuck you for sharing. That has to be the most moronic equivalent I've ever seen posted. Truly, I get the point but I feel you could have found a much more analogous comparison. I have to give you ten points for "pulling something out of your ass"; perhaps next time it will be your head.

Johnny L.A. – Okay, that's it, I want to have your baby. Or at least go through the baby making motions again and again and again and again and...... Sigh... ;)

[Johnny L.A.]

Johnny L.A. – Okay, that's it, I want to have your baby. Or at least go through the baby making motions again and again and again and again and...... Sigh... ;)
:o

Okay. As long as no living trees are harmed. Oh, I'm a little out of practice. It could take all night long! :eek:

[Czarcasm]

Okay, calm down. Don't make me transfer this to the Pit, making it the most pathetic thread in the history of the BBQ Pit.

[cjharker]

Those small trees cut for home use don't really bother me, but those large trees that cities cut down to decorate their downtown (Fort Worth, TX in my case) really bothers me. That tree has to be 50-100 years old or older (I don't know trees), and they cut it down to stick it in the middle of a street so it'd look pretty.

Oh, and I don't put up any Christmas decorations. I gave my tree to Goodwill this year.

[Pammipoo]

We usually get ours sometime in the week and a half before Christmas, whenever we get a chance to pick one out. This year, however, my mom decided to just bringone home yesterday. It actually made me sad...it's just not the same when you don't get to help choose the perfect one. I did get to put the lights on though...that made me happy.

And tonight, I'm sleeping on the couch...nothing more peaceful than glowing lights at Christmas. :)

[egkelly]

-what's the record for keeping a tree up? I used to live in Pasadena, CA, and the house next door to us kept theirs up untill Feb. 1st! I really like the color and warmth that the tree adds to a house, especially in the bleak, dark, long weeks AFTER New Years! So I say to you all, who keeps yopur tree up the longest?
PS-I recall seein one tree up (and lit) untill St. patrick's Day! (March)