Please answer only if you celebrate Christmas AND put up a tree. There will be no option for “I light a Menorah” or “I celebrate Christmas but don’t put up a tree.”
On our first Christmas together, Mrs. Homie and I bought a real tree (Mrs. Homie campaigned for a fake one, I campaigned for a real one). We only did it once. All those pine needles were WAY too much of a hassle.
We’ve been going fake ever since.
And FTR, if you haven’t bought a few strands of LED lights to put on your tree, go do it NOW. They are beautiful.
I love my fake tree. It was very inexpensive and looks quite nice–maybe because I really deck it out with ornaments.
It’s definitely the more environmentally friendly choice for me.
Here’s my handy fake tree tip: You know that stretch wrap they use to wrap pallets and things? It’s basically just Saran Wrap. So after I fold up my tree, I wrap Saran Wrap around it to hold each section together so it’s easily manageable. It fluffs out just fine the next year. I also store it in a duffel bag along with the rolls of Christmas wrapping paper. Works great.
Real. We go to the tree farm and everything.
Some year I am going to get tired of the hassle, and just get one of those nice-looking pre-lit fake trees. But not any time soon.
OMG, those motherfucking needles. I had a real Christmas tree, once, * 12 years ago. Never again. Sometimes I think I am still picking needles out of my hair or the carpet.
Stupid tree. :mad:
My parents tried having a real tree once, when I was a little kid. It didn’t work out so well. For starters it turned out I was allergic to dead pine needles (odd since being in the woods doesn’t bother me) and I kept getting really bad headaches and sick to my stomach everytime I went into the living room. I ended up spending Christmas at grandma’s that year. Also, my mother was not pleased cleaning up after the tree.
I would like to have a real one, but our cat would see it as a place to spray. Also, using a fake saves a bit of cash over the years.
…looking at the poll results, I had no idea how uneven this was going to be. Now I feel like a rebel.
IN regards to the allergies, besides just being in an enclosed area, I notice it also is much worse in a place where you sleep. For example, I can visit with my friends’ cats all day long but if I ever have to sleep over, even if I sleep in a different room, my allergies act up to the point where I can’t even breathe. I wonder if it’s because your nostrils tend to dry out when you sleep, thus allowing more stuff in, or something like that.
I grew up with real trees we cut in our own woods and I love the smell of them, but picking pine needles up from then on and the itchiness and disposing of them is a byotch and the artificial are 3200 times more convenient.
Me neither. Real trees smell better. I’d cut my own if there was any place to do it within 50 miles, so the nursery has to do. And the tree goes into a tree stand well over 50 years old from my wife’s house. It not only supplies electricity for the lights, but it also rotates the tree and plays music. Needs some repair work now and then, but it is non-digital and thus can be fixed.
I suppose when we start going to our kids’ houses for Christmas we might get a fake tree, but as long as they come to ours we’ll stay with a real one.
Fake fake fake. Always been fake since I’ve had my own place, barring the occasional potted “mini tree” given to me as a gift. Pulling needles out of the carpet is not my idea of fun.
My inlaws, in their late 70s now, have always insisted on getting a real tree, and that their only son (my husband) will go help them get the tree and put it up. Unfortunately their perceptions of how much a real tree should cost are stuck back about two decades. Every year my father-in-law flips about the tree costs, goes around from lot to lot to lot so that it takes all day, and finally my husband waves some extra money behind his head while FIL “bargains” on the cost, the salesman catches the drift and “agrees” on the reduced cost. My husband waited until last year to give the “listen dad, no one will sell you a tree for what you offer, they’ve only given in because I pay them more, you’re offering way too little for today’s prices” talk to him, because he was finally sick of the hours of temper tantrums over bargaining/being turned down and the smirking about finally getting someone to cave. Since we’re estranged from them this year, I hope FIL remembers that heads-up, else he may only get something like Charlie Brown’s (original) tree.
Real. For my family the ritual of getting and putting up the tree is the kickoff of the season, and important to the kids. Somehow unzipping a bag and screwing a tree together wouldn’t have the same impact.
We either cut one from the tree farm or go to one of the tree lots and buy one. I don’t feel any worse for the environment buying a Christmas tree than I do buying carrots - both are cash crops purpose-grown for me to buy. And with a real tree at least it gave oxygen back for a number of years before being cut down.
I’ve never had much of a problem with pine needles, but then I water a tree like crazy and we don’t keep it up very long after Christmas anyway.
It’s gotta be REAL!
I love the experience of it. Going to the tree lot and smelling that wonderful Christmas smell. Taking the time to pick out just the perfect tree. Bringing it home strapped to the top of the car and everyone smiles as they see you driving.
Every year the tree is different and unique. Maybe if I didn’t have kids I would go for a fake tree, but for me now, getting a tree is one of the magic parts of Christmas!
No way in hell am I dealing with spruce needles all over the place. I could possibly be convinced to keep a small potted spruce that would end up in a garden at the end of the winter, but that will wait for when I have a garden to put it in.
Real for the past 16 years. I love the look, feel, and smell of a real tree. I don’t get the complaints about needles; we vacuum once in a while whether there’s a tree or not and never have issues with the needles. Big family adventure to go pick one out, a tradition the kids will remember.
If I gave up on having a real tree I wouldn’t bother with a fake one.
Had real most of my life, but have had fake for about 8 years because of my wife’s and my daughter’s allergies.
I always found having a real one to be a lot easier than putting together and taking apart the fake one has been.
I never really had a huge hassle with needles, but I generally had very freshly cut trees and they were set up quite close to Christmas.
Fake. We always had real trees growing up, though my parents finally went to a fake one a few years ago, since the real ones got to be too much of a hassle to move and clean up after.
I’ll probably stick with fake, I feel sort of bad cutting down a whole tree just to decorate it then throw it away. Plus I like to keep it up for awhile if possible.
Sigh. It’s real.
I just can’t get SWMBO to agree to let me put up a picture of a Christmas tree and spray it with pine scent.
Fake. I grew up with real trees, but once I was out on my own, it was just so much easier to pull out the box, set it up, and immediately get to the fun decorating part. Going out to find the right tree, then having to wait for all the snow to melt off of it, and then finally getting to set it up the next day takes way too long for impatient ol’ me. Plus, I had one fake tree, and now-hubby had one so we have two trees, which is nice.
Unfortunately, his fake tree is old enough that it drops almost as many needles as a real tree. :smack: