Your Christmas tree; Real or artificial?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

We always cut our own. The MIL has a fake tree in her house, but 18 ft ceilings in the entryway and living room. I just may take a trip to the forest next week and surprise her.

bierhaus15 said:

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.

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What? Are you like a professional Christmas Tree puter uper?

Real

But it kills me to see all those leftover trees after Christmas that were cut down for no real purpose. I suppose they mulch or compost them but still.

Our neighbor owns a xmas tree farm. But all I see from my window are these short fat trees, trees as fat as tall. Anyway, every year we see people come and go with trees so we think those are just old trees never sold and they must have better ones back where we can't see. I think this year we may go over and check them out. The only problem is we have met them and if we don't like what we see, well I would feel bad walking away not buying a tree.

jgln said:

Real

But it kills me to see all those leftover trees after Christmas that were cut down for no real purpose. I suppose they mulch or compost them but still.

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No real loss. They are composted normally. Trees that don't sell before they are too big get cut and the field gets plowed and re planted so a lot of those trees may have been on their last year anyway.

You can't think of them as wild things that were harvested and not used. It's a crop just like the grain that goes into your beer. They are planted for exactly that reason and depending on where you are, they grow back in a fairly short time.
One of the real losses to the tree farm is the labor that goes into trimming and shaping the trees one or two times a year.

I only buy from a christmas tree farm where you cut the tree you want. The reason is that I've seen them start cutting the Christmas trees in October for shipping!!! What are the odds that a tree cut that early is going to last?
My main tree is going up this weekend and it's going to be up through the end of the first week of January. I might do both trees this weekend.

When I was a kid, we always had a freshly cut Christmas tree. Getting one was a family event. We went to a tree farm and my dad would cut the tree himself. Cold as ice during some of those Illinois winters but that was part of the fun. They had these little shacks on the farm with pot bellied stoves. You could go into one and get warm. My mom always brought a thermos of hot chocolate. Those were the days my friends.

I've never done that as an adult but always have a real tree. Nothing like walking into your home at the end of the day and being hit in the face with the aroma of a fresh Christmas tree.

Putting ours up this weekend.

Tiny fake tree. Put it away still decorated, and just straighten it up when we pull it out the next year. We don't really have any use for a big tree.

We also have a driftwood xmas tree, pretty neat looking, we decorate it with lights and it sits out on our deck all year long. We found it washed up along the river along with all the other driftwood there. I guess somebody discarded one in the river and it got stripped of all the bark. We found 2 actually.

Joeywhat said:

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

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That sucks, but I chuckled reading your post.

Golddiggie said:

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.

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The smell can't be beat. The wife and I got ours yesterday and I also brewed an Irish Red in the garage. Every time I'd come into the house for something I'd be reminded (by smell) of just how awesome a real tree is.

Try it at least for one December. If you don't like it you can always go back to a fake tree.

jgln said:

We also have a driftwood xmas tree, pretty neat looking, we decorate it with lights and it sits out on our deck all year long. We found it washed up along the river along with all the other driftwood there. I guess somebody discarded one in the river and it got stripped of all the bark. We found 2 actually.

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I'd love to see this. Care to take a pic?

Mods, please delete. This was a double post.

Here's a picture of ours. It's not blocking the hallway even though it appears to be. That's just the angle the picture was taken from. The wife and I shall be decorating it probably tomorrow or Saturday evening.

Growing up overseas had to have fake. Moved back to 'Washington coast and mom made sure to get us real. Went in the service so back to fake it was. But now we are back home and have many within arms length I can use. Its just the smell I can't ever get over it that makes it the.holidays for me.

Punity said:

Growing up overseas had to have fake. Moved back to 'Washington coast and mom made sure to get us real. Went in the service so back to fake it was. But now we are back home and have many within arms length I can use. Its just the smell I can't ever get over it that makes it the.holidays for me.

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Seriously. I lived almost 28 years of my life in Ohio. Christmas to me is snow and real trees. When the wife and I were getting our tree today I was almost sweating. Right now (4am) it's only 52°F and that's just not Christmas according to what I'm used to. However, when I was brewing today every time I'd come in the house I was reminded of the fact that it was the Christmas season. This was of course due to the smell of the tree. There's nothing that can replicate that as far as I'm concerned.

One of the biggest industries in my part of the world (Southwest Nova Scotia Stand Up!) is Christmas Tree farming. We send a big tree to Boston every year and quite often the Rockerfeller (sp?) Center tree is a Scotian too.

That said, gotta be real, gotta be a spruce. We've found we can findd the best trees from a little farm about 5 KM away. They are less "manicured then the lot trees you see in town, we get a 7-8 footer, cut the day before or so for $15! Can't beat that!

dfc said:

Seriously. I lived almost 28 years of my life in Ohio. Christmas to me is snow and real trees. When the wife and I were getting our tree today I was almost sweating. Right now (4am) it's only 52°F and that's just not Christmas according to what I'm used to. However, when I was brewing today every time I'd come in the house I was reminded of the fact that it was the Christmas season. This was of course due to the smell of the tree. There's nothing that can replicate that as far as I'm concerned.

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AHh yes the Summer Christmas, I lived in the Mojave for a few years so i to had a mind and body separation about what time of year it actually was.

Last year was the first time in my lifetime [then 65 years] that I had fake Christmas tree. We went that route because we were going to be gone over Christmas to visit our new-born grandson. We put it up again this year, and we've got some "ornaments" that give off a lovely pine odor, so at least it smells like Christmas!

When I was a kid we always got real trees. One year we got a fake tree and I was very upset. It hardly looked real, didn't smell real, and was a PITA to set up.

As a young adult we had real trees. One year after christmas we took it to a friends house for a bonfire... About 5 seconds after we tossed on the fire there was a 30 foot blowtorch coming out of the ground (It was burning that fast and hard.)

Next Christmas we got a fake tree...

Some years later I watched a video one of the volunteer firemen brought in of a trailer house catching fire from an electrical short in the tree lights (This was staged, but a real house and a real tree and no accellerant.) It was a real eye opener.

That said, I'm thinking about getting a real tree this year so my kids can experience it. Our risk is very low. Plus they go up much faster than putting together our fake tree.

My wife and I both had real growing up, ever since we've been married we've had fake. It started out because we were in an apartment. We've been in a house for a while now, and could have gone real, but I kind of like the fake one. We are going with my sister's family this weekend to cut down the one they will use this year. Maybe it's the cheapskate in me, trees around here go for anywhere between $45 - $80 last time I checked (I'll have a current price after this weekend) - our fake tree paid for itself long ago.

I always had real trees. When we bought our house, there was a tiny Christmas tree "farm" in the side yard. We got trees from it for a couple years before we took them all out.

Growing up, we always had fake trees, so as soon as I was on my own, I started getting real trees. Three years ago, my wife talked me in to getting a fake tree and I'm actually enjoying it a whole more than a real tree. We might go back to getting real trees in a few years.

Fake as a kid. Real now. Except maybe this year. Furniture took up the Christmas tree's spot. We were thinking of those rosemary Christmas bushes, but damn, the internet says they 'spensive for an herb bush.

8 foot artificial up in the front window for the world to see, 3 foot real tree in the mancave to make it smell less like wort and yeast farts.

Grew up with real trees until I was in my teens, then went to fake. My wife and I still use fake, but we were talking about going with a fake in our living room (due to size) and putting a real in our den for the world to see (as someone else stated). She's an "Old World" ornament enthusiast, so she could probably fill both trees quite easily.

After reading this, I do kind of want a real tree

Real, harvested from the Alaskan Wilderness a couple hours away!

We had real trees for years growing up. Mom was always upset that her kids had the sniffles around Christmas ... until she figured out we were all allergic to pine. Turns out i'm also allergic to pine boards (and sawdust) - it was "awesome" when I renovated my basement (looked like Indiana Jones whipped me with Poison Ivy).

So yea - fake tree.

On the bright side, a fake tree never dies. I've been pushing for using the tree during other holidays (Halloween tree!) but the SWMBO is adamantly against it.

This should be a Poll. Just saying


I go up in the hills and cut my tree every year.

IXVolt said:

This should be a Poll. Just saying


I go up in the hills and cut my tree every year.

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Done.

Used to get a real live tree to plant after Christmas, but one year in the 1980's we came back "home" for the holidays for two weeks so when the plastic route and have ever since as the tree

Real only..My wife has asked about a fake tree in the past, but no way..I grew up with real trees, when we would cut down our own..My boys and I pick out the tree..It's a nice tradition every year.