My wife and I typically go for a Frasier fir, since it seems ideal for hanging ornaments. The needles are shorter than, say, a Scotch Pine, and less dense than, for instance, a Noble fir. The one we picked this year is about eight feet high and still opening up to its full width. It’s ringed with baby gates to protect it from grabby little hands.
Growing up, my family always had a green artificial tree, which was perfectly nice, but my wife is from a real-tree family. Sometime after the New Year, the county picks them up and grinds them into mulch.
How about you? Real or artificial? What kind of real? What color artificial? How big?
And certainly, if you don’t put up a tree or don’t celebrate the holiday and would like to weigh in, you’re welcome.
Artificial, pre-lit, green, stands about two feet tall and lives on the ledge of a half wall that separates my dining room from my living room. My father in law thinks that my tiny tree, along with the fact that Santa doesn’t exist in our house except as a seasonal movie character, is me robbing the kids of their childhood, or whatever.
I love my little tree though. I really think buying a mini tree and reducing our overall spending, changes I made only a year ago, renewed my love for Christmas. I haven’t been excited about Christmas since my ten year old was a toddler but, after The Greatest Christmas EVER last year, I’m actually looking forward to it.
Oh! And I stopped buying gifts for extended family and adults in my immediate family. It makes the whole thing way less stressful. If I happen to see something and think “Hey, my sister would really like this a lot” I’ll pick it up but I don’t kill myself with guilt if I don’t also buy something for my brothers or my sister’s spouse, or whatever.
I don’t expect anybody to buy gifts for me either and wouldn’t want them to if they only did so out of a sense of obligation rather than, as above, seeing something special and knowing enough about me to know I’d love it.
I really love our new Christmas. Now I just need to figure out how to fix Thanksgiving…
(None of that was about trees. But I made my two foot plastic tree sound like a hero when, really, a lot of things contributed to my new appreciation of the holiday season. The tree was just a small part. Anyway…)
8ft Nordman Fir, which is the most popular type in the UK, good for needle drop, nice bushy branches.
I wouldn’t ever have a plastic tree, it lacks the smell and atmosphere of a real tree, IMO. My SIL has opted for a fake black tree covered in gold decorations to match her living room, which just sounds really tacky.
7ft Frasier Fir here. Actually, it’s more like a 6 footer, with a tall spire on top. A bit smaller than our usual tree, but it actually works better. Smaller footprint, the lights fit well, and we still get the ornaments on.
I grew up with a plastic tree, which took up a huge block of the attic, as they didn’t really fold up much back then.
This year we’ll break with tradition and draw a tree in the sand of a beach on the Andaman Sea, decorate it with some seashells, and post a photo on Facebook for my friends! Merry Christmas indeed!
One website I looked at listed the concolor fir as the longest lasting. We saw a nice 7 footer and got that. It was actually a little cheaper than the frasier. It has a nice citrusy smell to it.
4 foot artificial fiber optic tree. LED light in base under a spinning color disc, illuminating the fibers in the tree branches, otherwise a basic artificial tree with the green fake needles, limbs, etc.
Artificial tree about 7’ tall. When I worked a place that did live tree sales, I used to take a Frasier fir with me every year (with the company’s blessing) and was a bit of a tree snob. When I started having to pay $65 for my own tree, buying a nice fake one at a deep discount a couple days after Christmas was suddenly good enough
We have resorted to an eight-foot artificial blue spruce. Over the years it’s become a book of warm memories and family history. Every decoration is handmade by us or friends or a gift or something bought to celebrate something that happened that year.
It takes forever to decorate and take down again.
No one will take time to help me. Busy, busy, busy.
They say, “Oh, just don’t bother with a tree.” Also, “Forget the cookies; we don’t need them.” And “Do we have to keep reading the Christmas story from the Bible now that Grandpa and Grandma are gone?”
So it’s more new untraditions I need to adjust to. I’m not sure if they are trying to save me time and energy or if they’ve disliked our Christmas traditions all along.
And our house is so full of furniture now that I have a few pieces from mom and dad that there’s not much room anyway.
What I’ll do is take out a tree I was bringing out to Mom at the care center. It’s about three feet high and already hand-decorated, no lights. Open garbage bag. Whisk! Set it on the table in the living room and we’re done.
I’ll try not to pout about my old people tree. And I’ll be darned if I’m going to wonder what’s going to happen to all our precious decorations when we’re gone, she says.
Alergies among the wife and kids forced us to go with a 7’ artifical tree years ago. I’ve got to admit, I really like the pre-lit feature. I never did like stringing/unstringing lights.
Frasier Fir. They really are the best - they last forever, are really pretty, and they’re not all scratchy.
This year it’s maybe 7 or 8’ tall. Last year we got one that was easily 3’ taller. They’re gorgeous when they’re that big, but what a pain in the ass to decorate.
I’m a tree snob; I wouldn’t have a tree before I’d go to an artificial one.
Just bought back a 4-foot UK-grown blue spruce. Looks OK and smells nice, but I wish my partner would let me put up my 6-foot all-white artificial one. Once it’s coated in white lights and original 50s and 60s baubles it looks fabulous.
