Real or artificial tree?

artificial. We got it on sale after Christmas for less than we had paid for our real tree that year, and have had that tree for about 15 years now. I love not worrying about watering it, and having it up from Black Friday until early January. I do miss the smell of a real tree though.
 
When I was a girl, we did both. We had the silver tree with the color wheel in the living room upstairs; and, the live tree downstairs.
DH is allergic, so we have always had artificial trees. I clearly remember the work involved in a live tree, so I have no problem with it other than missing the scent.

Probably my only issue with the artificial trees is that once you invested in one with the built-in lights, you have essentially the "same" tree for years... I've been doing white lights for better than ten years now, I've thought about changing it up and doing colored, but would have to get a new tree, and there's nothing wrong with this one...
Whenever this one finally falls apart, I need to invest in one of the nicer ones that give you the option of colored, white or both.
 
When I was a girl, we did both. We had the silver tree with the color wheel in the living room upstairs; and, the live tree downstairs.
DH is allergic, so we have always had artificial trees. I clearly remember the work involved in a live tree, so I have no problem with it other than missing the scent.

Probably my only issue with the artificial trees is that once you invested in one with the built-in lights, you have essentially the "same" tree for years... I've been doing white lights for better than ten years now, I've thought about changing it up and doing colored, but would have to get a new tree, and there's nothing wrong with this one...
Whenever this one finally falls apart, I need to invest in one of the nicer ones that give you the option of colored, white or both.

That's what I have. But I don't like colored lights or blinking lights so I normally just keep it on steady white. The kids switch it when I leave the room.
 


Another Griswold here ......

7-8 trees .... lost count? ONE real, DH insists for smell. Rest fake. 3 ft, 6 ft, 7 ft .... fat and slims. All themed. Disney tree, pewter tree, family memento tree, junkie tree, HM in my HM kitchen tree, beach life tree ..... and it goes on. Santas and snowmen everywhere. Painted village (my Mom painted). Garland and wreaths. Lots of old family decor .... like a 3-4' tall soldier that was my Grandmothers.

I have only cut back on the front yard decor. Used to be something like 30,000+ lights, lighted reindeers, 8 ft snowman .... obnoxious. Now I use those laser lights (3 different kind) and some simple light up trees, candy canes, snowman .....

I donated boxes full of decor to Goodwill, I decided to let some go for someone else to enjoy. But I'm sure I'll stop in at the after sales. :rolleyes:

Yep, almost exactly the same thing. We've got trees, Santas and nutcrackers everywhere, lighted garland up the stair rails, along with all kinds of other odds and ends inside the house. Our village isn't an heirloom, it's all stuff from Kohls, WalMart, Michaels, etc...but it's pretty big.

I don't know how many lights I have outside, but it's also probably in the neighborhood of 30,000. Plus I probably have another 10-15k just sitting in the basement.

And yes, we'll be hitting stores Dec 26th. Sadly, most stores like Wal-Mart and Michaels don't "overstock" around here, so the after Xmas pickings can be a bit slim. In our old hometown, even on Jan 1st there would still be aisles upon aisles full of Xmas stuff left. All of my lights are LED and that's how I got them. I used to buy them by the caseload at WalMart for like $.75/box. I posted this in another thread, but this picture is the section of my basement where I keep our outdoor lights and electrical. It doesn't show where we keep all of our blow ups, wire frames, etc...or our indoor stuff. Our basement has Xmas stuff literally everywhere.

Xmas lights1.jpg
 
We switched from live to fake tree about 30 years ago. Our current tree is enjoying it's last Christmas and we'll be looking for something new. Looking for suggestions on how much we need to spend to get a nice looking pre-lit tree. These trees described in this thread as easy to set-up sound great! We have a 7 1/2 ft. tree at present, might consider down-sizing to two smaller trees. We have a lot of Disney ornaments that are figurine style (rather than the typical glass globe) if that makes a difference.:santa:
 
Both. As I've mentioned in other threads, we go full Clark Griswold. We have 9 trees in our house. Two are real, the other 7 are artificial.

I am gong to either make Klayfish look like a rookie or make myself look insane.

I am way behind this year and will probably not put anymore trees up at this point but I have put up 17 full sized (six foot or taller) and 3 three-four foot trees so far. Three of the trees are outside of my house on my front porch and side porch and a four foot tree sits in the garage window. that leaves 13 inside the house.

My record is 29 trees - all artificial except one live tree.

This year will be the first time in decades that we will not have a live tree - this is due to no time and some cruddy weather (we go to a tree farm).

I am actually looking forward to not having the mess and not having to crawl under it to water it.
 


I am gong to either make Klayfish look like a rookie or make myself look insane.

I am way behind this year and will probably not put anymore trees up at this point but I have put up 17 full sized (six foot or taller) and 3 three-four foot trees so far. Three of the trees are outside of my house on my front porch and side porch and a four foot tree sits in the garage window. that leaves 13 inside the house.

My record is 29 trees - all artificial except one live tree.

This year will be the first time in decades that we will not have a live tree - this is due to no time and some cruddy weather (we go to a tree farm).

I am actually looking forward to not having the mess and not having to crawl under it to water it.

Love it, that's awsome!! :thumbsup2

I have roughly 15-20 total artificial trees...mostly the 6' ones from Wal-Mart. If you wait until after New Years, you can get them for $5 each. In years past, we would have 6 or 7 of them inside the house and the rest as part of our outside display. However, time just isn't on our side anymore and we never got to the ones for outside. They're just sitting in their boxes under my basement stairs.

I was so sad this year that we couldn't go to a tree farm, first time in 20 years. Like you, cruddy weather. You don't need to crawl under the tree to water it. Get one of those $5 watering contraptions that Target/Wal-Mart sells. It's basically a 4' long narrow tube with a funnel on the end. It makes watering oh-so easy. That is, it's easy if the darn tree would drink water. Since we couldn't go to a farm this year, we had to buy pre-cut. Got two from Home Depot. Both stopped drinking water a few days after we got them. I'm not optimistic how much longer they'll make it.
 
Love it, that's awsome!! :thumbsup2

I have roughly 15-20 total artificial trees...mostly the 6' ones from Wal-Mart. If you wait until after New Years, you can get them for $5 each.

Yep, never pay retail. I have also grabbed a few at auctions.


I have the funnel on a stick for tree watering but the pole and bobber went missing a few years ago so i never know when the water is about to overflow so i end up crawling under the tree to check the level.
 
Had real trees for years. Cut from a tree farm. Made a whole day of getting the tree, decorating, etc.

Then one year as soon as the tree came in the house ods and I got sick and stayed sick the whole season. I didn’t connect it to the tree since we always got the same kind of tree. But, as soon as it went out, we got well. We were told that it was something the farm started spraying on the trees to help them maintain their color. So the next year we went to a lot. No sickness but the tree dried out quickly and barely made it to Christmas. That year on the 26th we bought a fake tree. And have been happy with our’s ever since.

I don’t miss the smell of pine in the house. If I do start, I will just walk outside since our woods are full of them!!
 
After 38 years of marriage we still enjoy getting a real tree-just a little smaller (8ft instead of 10 or 12).
 
Real! Always went out in the woods with my family to cut one down when I was growing up. They were always ugly, misshapen things because they had not been grown to be used as Christmas trees, but they looked beautiful to us after we strung the lights and hung the ornaments and threw gobs of tinsel at it while my mother yelled "ONE strand at a time! You DRAPE the tinsel you don't THROW it!"

As an adult, I don't have any woods to cut one down and we don't have tree farms where I live, so we make do with Home Depot.

Someday, maybe, when DH and I are old and feeble and the kids are off in their own homes with their own Christmas trees, we'll break down and buy an artificial tree. But I'm still a long way from there.
 
I grew up going to Maple Row Tree Farm every year two weeks before Christmas. We would hike through the woods to find just the right tree, tall and narrow was my mother's choice, short and wide, my father's. My mother's choice always won. There was a large shed in the middle of it all with a warm fire and a place to sit and drink hot chocolate out of the thermos my mother brought. After we cut down our tree, we rode back on the back of a tractor and had a hayride with our tree. We didn't put up the tree until Christmas Eve, decorating it with all of my relatives before a special dinner followed by the candlelight service at church.

Those days ended with my mother's death in 1986.

My husband and I tried to keep up the tradition for a few years until my daughter and I were diagnosed with asthma and allergies. We now put up our beautiful artificial pre-lit tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, just the three of us. We now have our new traditions that are special to us, but I will never forget the feelings I had getting our tree and my brother lifting me up so that I could put the star on top.
 
Artificial, Had a real tree first year as newlyweds(35 years ago:love:), too paranoid about watering it, being away, possible fire.:scared1: Have had artificial every year except one, love it! I love decorating it as every year placing the oranaments on the tree is different and unique. The ornaments bring back incredible memories, first year married, both DS, babys first xmas, etc. Both DH and my parents are deceased, so I love looking at the ornaments that they gave us, thinking back on all the beautiful memories, knowing they are smiling above and in peace now. Merry Christmas to all with blessings of health, love, peace, hope, and happiness this holiday season.:santa: :wave2:Very sad this morning thinking of those that are lonely or sick this Christmas. May they find BETTER HEALTH, HOPE, PEACE, in their heart.:rose:::yes::
 
This is the first year we've ever had an artificial tree and I LOVE it! The last few years we've taken to traveling in December and it's been a real challenge--we'd have to put the tree up late, or one year we just didn't do one (we were going to be in Puerto Vallarta for Christmas itself). One year we ended up actually taking down the tree before Christmas. It was just a pain, but I've seen so many terrible artificial trees that I just couldn't bring myself to do it. We finally took the plunge this year. It was kind of expensive, but we got a good deal--and it's awesome. It probably took an hour or two to put up but it's amazing. It looks totally real but just the most even, roughly symmetrical tree we've ever had. Also, we have a LOT of ornaments--seriously our tree looks like the department store trees at the beginning of the season--and I never realized how much it bothered me how much the strength of the branches varied with a real tree. I keep waiting for that end of the season slumping of the tree where the ornaments start to shift down and a few fall off. It just tickles me that it's just not coming. Anyway, no regrets so far.
 
Real! Always went out in the woods with my family to cut one down when I was growing up. They were always ugly, misshapen things because they had not been grown to be used as Christmas trees, but they looked beautiful to us after we strung the lights and hung the ornaments and threw gobs of tinsel at it while my mother yelled "ONE strand at a time! You DRAPE the tinsel you don't THROW it!"

As an adult, I don't have any woods to cut one down and we don't have tree farms where I live, so we make do with Home Depot.

Someday, maybe, when DH and I are old and feeble and the kids are off in their own homes with their own Christmas trees, we'll break down and buy an artificial tree. But I'm still a long way from there.

My grandparents always got a tree off their land. It got to be a big part of Christmas to see what kind of tree they got! It was rarely a cedar. One year it was a magnolia, one year it was some kind of holly looking tree (is holly a tree?) with red berries and thorny leaves. Somehow no matter what kind, grandma always made it look great. The magnolia stayed up until Valentines Day at least.

When my sister married, she wanted to do the same thing. Always ended up with a pine tree. Sometimes it looked like a Charlie Brown tree but always a Pine and always from their land. She finally decided on an artificial tree when she got a lot of glass ornaments and wanted limbs that would hold them.
 
Fake. Like real better but it's too messy and expensive to buy and always worry about fire. But I also hate lugging out fake tree and fluffing it all up (de smooshing it).
 
I just found a Christmas photo from 1964. The artificial tree I sold when my mom passed away in 2013 is in the photo. Nearly 50 years. I think she got her money's worth.
 

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