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Which do you prefer?
I love all the old films where the Christmas trees people had in their homes were always real, huge, and lasted till 12th night without dropping....the reality was a bit different but I always loved my real trees.
Then a few years ago we opted for false, now we have what looks like a bare branched tree, quite sad till I plug it in, then it has thousands of tiny twinkly lights to make it look beautiful.

What does your tree look like?

When I was in Alaska in the Air Force we wanted a tree for the officer's lounge. We drove down the hill and cut one down in the valley. I think it was about 30 below zero so it was frozen solid. We put it up and left it for a month and it didn't loose any needles!

That's a nice memory to have Planosteve.
I think the colder you can keep your tree the longer it'll last....and -30 is quite cold.
Not long after we were married we managed to keep our tree healthy throughout, then we planted it outside in January. It's now taller than the house and has made a brilliant climbing den for the grandsons over the years.

I have a fake silver one we will be using again this year. Got it for cheap after Christmas one year. If I want the scent of a real tree, I will just buy a live wreath.

Canny shopper.

I read a statistic that in the UK more people opting for a first time fake tree choose silver before any other colour.

I have also noticed here that people put their trees up earlier and earlier. Ours goes up on the 15th...(sons birthday) that's what we always did when he was small and we have stuck to that date.

We have a fake tree. We used to go a tree farm a cut our own tree but it's just easier to use an artificial tree especially if you want to have it up for a few weeks. The real trees dry out too fast for that plus they are messy.

Jami wrote:We have a fake tree. We used to go a tree farm a cut our own tree but it's just easier to use an artificial tree especially if you want to have it up for a few weeks. The real trees dry out too fast for that plus they are messy.

There is some solution that you can spray on to keep the needles from drying out, not sure if it works. When we bought real trees we always bought them with the roots still attached, they could be watered and lasted longer that way.

In my single days, I would cut down what we Texans call a Cedar Tree, it is actually a Red Juniper.

That lasted one Christmas after Mrs. Red Oak and I were married, she wanted no part of a nasty stickerey damn cedar tree.

Out at the Owl Hoot I made a Tumble Weed Christmas tree decorated with spray paint and empty shotgun shells .

I don't know about the shotgun shells but the painted tumble weed sounds fun.

Red Oak wrote:In my single days, I would cut down what we Texans call a Cedar Tree, it is actually a Red Juniper.

That lasted one Christmas after Mrs. Red Oak and I were married, she wanted no part of a nasty stickerey damn cedar tree.

Out at the Owl Hoot I made a Tumble Weed Christmas tree decorated with spray paint and empty shotgun shells .

Some of you are very 'hands on' I must say.

All we ever did was nip to the garden centre and buy one that would be trussed up and carted home. I do remember one year when it snowed heavily in December, the car was snowed in so we took a sledge and pulled the tree home on that.

I wish I still had the aluminum tree with the color wheel from my childhood.

I believe my Dad threw it away after my Mother died.

Christmas trees can hold many memories, some lovely one but also some painful ones.

When my own mum was ill we couldn't be bothered with dressing a real tree, or even an imitation one, so we got the one we still have, a pre lit tree which takes little time to assemble.
When my grandson was small, every year we would take him to some magical Christmas place (magical to him) where he could pick one bauble for the tree..., they were very happy memories brought to life every year when we got them all out again.

for the last 15 years we have used a pre-lit 9' tree ..this year our daughter and 4 year old grandson are living with us and talked us into a 7' live tree ...NEVER again !!!! putting lights on a pain , they have no odor anymore, darn tree got decorated and fell over, so complete redo ..We are too old for this !! And, grandson pays no attention to it anyway

We go one step beyond pre lit..pre decorated!

Carry it in from the garage..plug it in..done!

scarlett~nc wrote:for the last 15 years we have used a pre-lit 9' tree ..this year our daughter and 4 year old grandson are living with us and talked us into a 7' live tree ...NEVER again !!!! putting lights on a pain , they have no odor anymore, darn tree got decorated and fell over, so complete redo ..We are too old for this !! And, grandson pays no attention to it anyway

We put up a beautiful 6' "live" tree this week; and both my wife & I noticed that it does not have that good pine smell...

At home it was the cedar tree, would check out every tree starting ouyin September, would cut it about 2 weeks before, and it usually lasted about 2. Mom would have it down before the leftovers were cold, no carpet,so the needles were not a big deal.

When I was growing up in the South the "cedar" (eastern red juniper) was the standard, unquestioned choice for Christmas trees. It was only later I learned that in other areas pines or other types of evergreens are used. None seem to me to have the necessary body provided by dense branches and needles.

We haven't put up a Christmas tree in the last 25 years, none since the last of the kids moved out. I like the no tree deal.

When we lived on the farm, we always had cedar trees. Our church made a picnic out of coming out to get a huge cedar tree. Some brought trucks because they'd also cut wood from trees Steve had cut down earlier in the fall. When we moved here, we had live trees and always, always they had to be big. We have an eye hook in the ceiling to make sure it didn't fall over. Then we went to Jackson's and bought a 10 foot high fake tree. It was very expensive and beautiful. We didn't know we'd get old. Now we have a much smaller artificial tree.

Our daughter sends us a huge wreath every year. It's a frasier fir and Hubs didn't take it down until maybe June. As I walk along the sidewalk at Kroger, it's a delight because the Christmas trees are so fragrant. I heard HEB didn't have trees this year. "it might offend someone" is the excuse. Kroger trees are spectacular. They always have the best trees.

We moved to a prelit tree (6 ft) about 5 years ago.
That tree is HEAVY. 2 years ago, husband said, "I don't know how much longer I can carry this down from attic."

Last year, no one was going to visit for Christmas. We had to bring in the hibiscus and it was still covered with blooms. So, we put a few lights on the hibiscus, a few gold balls and "presto" it was our tree.

This year, the hibiscus is in--but it has no decorations and won't be decorated. Again, no visitors will share Christmas joy, so.............

Here is a photo from last year: