Fake. I grew up with a fake tree and after helping my friends with their real trees over the year I’m never going to get one. The amount of time I’ve spent under the tree tightening and loosening screws so that a lopsided tree looks straight or spinning a tree so the ‘good side’ shows is way more then the scent of the tree is worth. Not to mention there is no maintenance with a fake I don’t need to water, pick up needles or worry about it drying up and catching fire.
Real! My dad planted a whole lot of pine trees on the back acre several years ago, so every year we go out to Grandpa’s Christmas Tree Farm and cut one down. They are not exactly perfect (plus you have to get the dead leaves and bugs out), but it’s a lot of fun for the kids and the price is right.
Yeah, the needles are a pain. It helps that we only have the tree for a couple of weeks, but they are a pain.
Fake. Green for the house, Wildcat Blue for the office.
gasp Real, of course. I can’t imagine going to the trouble of decorating if the tree was fake. Getting the tree is the fun part!
Now see my idea of fun doesn’t involve picking out trees. I’d rather get the decorating over with and commence to baking.
If I could, I’d bag up the whole tree, ornaments, lights and all, and put the whole set up away the day after Christmas.
We can’t have a real tree. We’re in an apartment-style condo with no sprinkler system so a real tree would violate fire code, and AC is allergic to pine anyway.
Ours is fake at the moment.
We tend to go back and forth, depending on what our holiday plans involve. I love real, too. We’ve had some great real trees. But the fake is awfully convenient to have when I know I’m going to be pressed for time, like this year I have a business trip that will cut into a lot of my usual holiday planning time so the fake tree is going up this weekend and I cross one big thing off my list. I also vaguely worry about real trees being a fire hazard when we’re not home for an extended period of time.
I am allergic to spruce and pine and have always had a fake tree.
But even if I didn’t, considering the cost, cat attacks and that they die so fast, I would keep my fake.
FWIW, my mom and I used to always decorate the tree together (I still go over to my parents’ place and do this) and they are some of the best christmas memories I have. Every ornament is a memory and there is hot chocolate and candy canes at the end. And I didn’t have to freeze my tush off going to get the tree (okay, getting the box up the stairs was always an adventure).
Fake. I’ve always had fake. While I’ve never had the experience of a real tree inside, assembling the tree was an extension of decorating the tree, and every bit as exciting.
Used to have full size fake trees, but now I got a small fake tree that comes out of the box without need to put together or decorate. A stunted bonzai christmas tree does sound extremely appealing for no good reason.
sigh
We have a fake tree. I grew up with real ones and loved it. Hubby grew up with a fake one, and hated that I wanted a real one. But we had real ones, until our oldest son came along. Now we have a fake prelit one, and while I appreciate the convenience, I miss the fun of the hunt and the magic of the smell.
Real all the way. I love the smell, and we have only hardwood on our main floor, so the needles aren’t really an issue.
I want a real Christmas Tree, I never had one. Someday though…
Fake. i’m allergic to real trees.
Real - but I would prefer a fake. My husband won’t buy the professionally grown real ones & a regualr pine just isn’t @ its best during a New Zealand summer.
My christmas tree is USB powered!
Sadly, fake. I would love to have a real one, but my husband can’t stand the needles, and I can’t stand listening to him bitch about it for the next 6 months, so fake it is.
Real for the last few years and for the foreseeable future. I resisted going to the real ones for a while, worrying about all the stories I’d always heard about the deluge of needles and how dry and hard they get, etc.
My worries were totally unfounded. Our local fruit stand sells…I can’t remember which species it is. Maybe a Frazier fir? It’s got those clumps of little short non-pokey needles, whatever it is, and stays soft right through New Years if you keep it watered. We got one of the big tree stands with the huge water reservoir, so we slap it in the stand, let it fall out for a few hours, decorate, and throw in some water once a week or so. We sweep around the tree when we sweep the rest of the floor. Easy.
And given the lifespan of the fake trees my parents have had in recent years, it works out about the same cost-wise.
I grew up in a house where we always had real trees, and liked it, but as I’m living alone these days, I don’t see the point in all the rigamarole associated with that. I still like to have some Xmas decs about, though, so have a a cheap four-foot artificial tree and some ornaments I bought at Big Lots. The whole schmear takes about ten minutes to set up and is remarkably effective at transmitting the whole Christmas Spirit thing.
I grew up in middle class America and I’ve never seen a real tree in a house, even though I see them for sale every year.
Weird, right?
Real. A Christmas tree is a whole experience - picking the tree, cutting it down, keeping it watered, the smell of pine, decorating the tree - the hassle is well worth it IMO.