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**dfc** · 11-30-2012, 02:30 AM

The wife grew up with an extremely allergic mother, so she never got to have a real tree in the house. My family usually got a real tree every year, so I was used to it, but we always had a short ceiling, so our trees never really eclipsed 6 ft.

Well, the wife loves real trees seeing as she could never have one and this year we decided to get a BIG tree. Since we have enough room we went with a 9ft tree this year and my living room smells amazing. Plus, once Christmas is over I've got some nice kindling for outdoor fires as well as a decent bit of firewood from the trunk.

How about you guys?

carguy13 · 11-30-2012, 02:45 AM

real tree... always. sometimes its a pain, but it's worth it to see the kids faces when we pick the tree out and bring it home. always worth it.

ReverseApacheMaster · 11-30-2012, 02:57 AM

As a kid we always had a fake tree. My wife's family always had a real tree. We have no tree. It's not that we are opposed to the tree but we don't have kids and we do Christmas morning at her parents house. It's not worth the effort to throw up a tree, especially when we have both been in school and dealt with finals in early December.

bierhaus15 · 11-30-2012, 03:43 AM

Preferably a real tree and not those scrawny white pine trees either. Gotta be spruce or a fir.

Aside, a few years back I got hired to cut down, install, and decorate a 18.5ft tree for a snooty, doctor couple who wanted a proper Christmas tree for their grandkids... because normal sized trees just "don't have enough room for all the presents." It took me a whole morning to cut the tree down and get it into the house and another 6 hours to get it standing up and decorated. Then I had to take the damn thing down three weeks later. Since then, all Xmas trees must be under 10ft if I am to have anything to do with them.

Otterella · 11-30-2012, 03:47 AM

We've always done fake, but this year I suggested maybe we consider a real tree and my husband jumped at the chance. He's always preferred the real thing. I could brag and say he appreciates natural beauty.

**VegasJ** · 11-30-2012, 03:58 AM

I grew up making trips to the mountains with my parents, aunt & uncle and cousins, along with some family friends to cut down our own trees.

Everyone would bring something for all to share for lunch... chili over the fire, flavored brandy for sipping in the snow, or hot chocolate.

Miss those days... a real tree just smells like Christmas!!

now the gf and I have a fake tree.

I really want to get back into cutting trips every year again

Brew-Jay · 11-30-2012, 04:21 AM

Grew up with real trees - chopped down from a Christmas Tree lot. But alas, my three-year-old is allergic. So this year we are getting a fake tree for the first time. Man, I'll miss that smell. Maybe he'll grow out of it.

Joeywhat · 11-30-2012, 04:36 AM

Oh God, fake for sure. I was an only child, so I got tree duty 100% back in the day.

**45_70sharps** · 11-30-2012, 05:06 AM

I grew up in the Northwest. Washington coast so we are surrounded by trees. No one allergic to anything around here so always a real tree.
Now what I do is cut a tree at a Christmas tree farm for the living room since you can get perfect trees there, and I cut one in the woods that's a little more ragged to go in the family room next to the bar. That one's a dad tree. I decorate it with pin striped ornaments, a few wrenches, maybe a few spark plugs, misc. smallish old car parts and anything else car culture that I can come up with.
I've got hot rod theme tree and my bar with the kegerator full of homebrew sitting there. Old hubcaps and a rotating assortment of things like a model A grill on the wall behind the bar and old guns and aviation pictures on the other walls.
My married friends love to hang out at my house!
It's a guys Christmas paradise in that room.

I have had a fake tree up a couple years. That was for a third or fourth tree though. One house I owned had a basement with white carpet and furniture. I used a fake tree there. I've also put a fake tree in a front little front room I have here. Really more of a porch that someone enclosed into about a 20 x 8 room that is too cold to use in the winter. Great place for another tree that you don't have to worry about but that can be seen from the outside when it's all lit up.

Anyone ever seen a deer skull with a red light in the nose? Makes a great little reindeer decoration at the bar!

**Golddiggie** · 11-30-2012, 05:14 AM

Growing up we always had the fake tree. Now that I'm living in a place with enough room, I'm thinking about getting a real one this year. Probably going to check it out tomorrow/Friday while running errands.

Could be a nice change for me.