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Mary Lou's good morning post about going out to find a tree leads me to ask...
Do you do a real or artificial tree?
We have done a real tree for the last 20 years.....we have been through the falling trees, the crooked trees, the dry trees and last year something inside me snapped so this year we have our first fake tree and here's the part where my mother spins in her grave but I absolutely love it! (sorry, mom....)
We didn't get a pre lit tree ( I have some standards after all) and it doesn't look perfect by any means since we sadly bought the 9 foot tree for our family room with 8 foot ceilings (it's only our 2nd year in this house.....who knew?) so it's a little mushed at the top where we had to bend things around to make it fit and of course there's no angel but life goes on.
Angela Z.
I prefer a real tree. When I was in my own home I always said I would rather have no tree than a fake one. I had lost the Christmas spirit for a long time and had no tree at all when I was alone. Now that I live with Lane and we take care of a mentally retarded lady we have a small fake tree in the house. Right now they are outdoors putting up the lights on the bushes and later will assemble the tree. I plan to turn it into a festive family party by making cocoa and pop corn.
Cruznut2
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I'll always like a real tree, but we've been using artificial now for several years. After a couple of years it had paid for itself. It's also alot safer as it doesn't dry out and create a fire hazzard. Also it saves trees
We've had an artificial tree for quite a few years now. I miss the smell of the pine, so I usually get some greenery to put around the house.
Last year, in Florida, I bought a little fake tree, and decorated it out on the Lanai (porch to us northerners). It really looked pretty out there with all the lights sprakling at night.
We've had a fake tree for years. Bought a really nice one 20 years ago..12ft.Since then our ceilings have also shrunk but the tree is made in sections and we were able to take off the bottom. Last year, my eldest son and his children spent Christmas with us, he was newly divorced and wanted to go all out for the kids. The cut down their tree,which of course wound up to be big,fat, and lopsided, but the kids were happy. The saddest part of the whole thing is the tree grew on you and when we threw it away it broke my heart to waste it....yes it was grown for this purpose but heh...it was alive once! We strung it with popcorn and Granpa braced it up in the back yard and it was a bird feeder for the rest of the year. The kids put new strands on everytime they came over. We later used it for campfire wood. None of it was wasted but it truely bothers me to cut down a tree!
Phyll,
I can't believe how oddly liberating this fake tree has been. We had a great tree place that we went to in Cocoa Beach every year....yes, a 50 mile trip across the Beeline with one eye on the road and the other on the rear view mirror to make sure the tree wasn't flying out of the back of my little truck.....yes, I know they're heavy but I still worried about it.
Now that my sister no longer lives in Cocoa Beach and we don't have the truck anymore it seemed the perfect year to make the switch.
I'll never forget the year my husband and I woke up around 2am because we both heard little bell noises and tinkling noises and then the tree fell! We still refer to this as "tinkle tinkle whoosh"
Angela Z.
We've always had a real tree, and it's always been an eight footer, because I have tons of decorations. But as we've aged, we put fewer of the decorations on the tree. Now that Keith has been so ill, we'll probably get something much smaller and easier for him to handle.
The tree is up one week before Christmas and one week after. It comes down New Years Day. We have neighbors who keep their tree up way into January. I think that's too dangerous, a fire hazard.
Count me in the "fake" brigade. When I grew up, we always had a table-top, plastic, WHITE Christmas tree, God knows why, but it's all I ever knew. When I got married, we got a 2nd hand green one, that I lost in the divorce, but I kept the ornaments, since I'd made most of them myself. Since the kids and I have been on our own, we bought a garage sale 6ft. evergreen, that slightly resembles Charlie Brown's skimpy tree. All of our ornaments are either hand-made by me or the kids, or hand-made from craft sales and such, or special gifts from friends or family. I keep saying we should buy a new, decent tree, but somehow cannot part with "old faithful".
Now, if I could just get up enough Christmas spirit to drag it out and decorate it this year. None of us are feeling very hopeful about Christmas right now...
Up until this year, we've always had real, but after last Christmas I shopped for a fiber optic one and we got a great deal on a display model and will give that a try this year. Who knows, we may just go back to the real, but I wanted to give artificial a try, this one should look beautiful!
Location: Wisconsin....about 100 miles south of the Frozen Tundra and 70 miles east of Camp Randall
Posts: 9,382
Re: Real or artificial tree Mates?
Artificial here.....would love a real tree, but I am allergic to the needles and tar!!! Bring one in the house and if I touch it I break out in hives. Have been this way since I was little, so except for the few times my Dad put up a real tree in the basement along with the artificial one upstairs in the living room, it has always been artificial.
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We had the "real" thing for years until our kids decided it was not "politically correct" - save the forest and all that. I miss the smell though - so I purloin a branch here and there when I walk the dogs - I come home with boughs protruding from my backside (get the visual lol). I guess what I do like about the "fake" is it can go up sooner and stay up longer. I always put mine up on December 9th - it was my sisters birthday - we lost her many years ago when she was 7 - so every year I put my special angel on the top of the tree and she watches over us. Have a great day -ttfn Jennifer
We have a real tree every year. But we take it down Dec 27th every year because my DS's birthday is January 1 and we did this to separate Christmas from birthday, He is going on 8 this year.
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Melissa
"If you aim for the moon and miss, you'll end up in the stars" Lester Brown
It's always a real tree! After all, the tree farmers have to eek out a living too. A farm on my way to work has converted from a dairy farm to a tree farm. It's a good use for all of the acres of corn that they grew every year.
Anyway, we'll be getting ours this Saturday. It will come down New Year's day.
Another play thing for the cats. <G>
REAL of course!! This year we have a beauty that we planted in our back yard a few (?)years ago. It will take up lots of our living room space!!!!! I love the real tree smell and the imperfections of the trees!
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We always had a real tree when I was a kid. It was not even brought into the house until after we were asleep on Chritmas Eve. Then my Dad and Grandfather would transform the house into "Christmas". After I was 11 or 12 , we went skiing for the week between Christmas and New Years . Mom never wanted the live tree left up unattended, so we took it down Christmas night or the morning of the 26th.
I have a younger brother 20 years younger than I am, this "pattern" continued until he was a teen ager , so it went on for almost 40 years. Anyone who celebrated Christmas late could have a perfectly good tree for free.
Gram and I go artificial now , comes from one of our children having an allergy issue with the live trees. We got a brand new one this year and it goes up tonight.
One of my best memories of Christmas past was going out to "chop" down our own Christmas tree...If it wasnt REAL,I wouldnt have it in my home. My tree always went up Thanksgiving night,and didnt come down until after the playoffs in Jan....so you can imagine all the needles in my carpet! Then one day in July,I awoke to a fire next door! That was a real nightmare,and I started thinking of everything I could to do in my home to prevent a fire! So,you guessed it,that was my 1st Christmas to have an artifical tree.But,I have some wonderful ornaments,and my tree has GOT to be one of the most beautiful ones around! BUT...Im working this year,and Im so tired,the thought has crossed my mind to not put one up this year..Thanksgiving has come and gone...I did buy a 3 ft. prelit Cactus after Christmas last year..and Im thinking about just plugging that in! Ive already got tons of gifts in my dinning room.Happy Holidays to everyone! Dot
When I was growing up my Dad (the Fireman) wouldn't have a 'real' tree. We had a 'fake' that looked thinner every year, we called it Charlie Brown. Funny thing is that every year we would put it up and it looked horrible, until we covered it with all the decorations, and then it was beautiful. When my parents finally got a new tree i was upset with them that the would be getting rid of Charlie Brown.
When I moved from thier house, DH and I had a 'fake' tree for the first couple of years. Then we did the tree lot thing for a couple of years. Now we go out weeks early to a tree farm wander the lot until we find the perfect tree to tag, and then go back a week or two before Christmas and bring it home.
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Real or artificial tree Mates?
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