CHAT Real or Artificial Christmas Tree this year?

[ioujc]

Just wondering:

Are you folks getting a real tree this year?

Or using an artificial one?

Or opting not to have a tree at all?

No tree here......the RV is already packed to the gills.....no room for anything else.

I might get a tiny 6" tree, but I haven't found one yet.

PLUS ....I have Danny and Bubba goat, who would, both try to eat the tree AND decorations, I am sure!!

 

[NoDandy]

The first few years after I bought my property I would put a notice on the bulletin board at work that I would buy potted live trees after the holiday at half the original price to plant on my property. It kept some cut trees out of the land fill and my co-workers enjoyed a live tree for Christmas at half the price. Unfortunately we must have an artificial inside our own house due to visiting family members with allergies.

Our first Christmas in the house 1999, we got a potted live tree. We planted it in the front yard. Today, it is probably over 30 ft tall.

 

[Dobbin]

Owner has an artificial tree he and his wife have used since about 1990 - before my arrival. He has gone with artificial because the wood stove dries out the air in the house so much a natural tree will last only a week before it starts dropping needles.

It was expensive when he and his wife bought it. It's still a rather nice looking tree, even at this advanced age. But it gets that way by severe effort on the part of Owner.

Stored as its component pieces, Owner hauls it down from the top of his connector wing and sets it up in the house. I see him as he makes SEVERAL trips down with parts of the tree, or even bunches of component branches.

It didn't require so much effort at first. But what has happened is the plastic "spiders" which hold the branches to the truck have gotten brittle and are breaking. Owner made a new spider arrangement out of metal rings and the lowermost five rows of branches have to be landed "individually."

I think Owner likes the setting up of the tree. It takes him about 3 hours which includes the carry, the straightening, and the final placement of the tree in the main room. For him I think there is something "ceremonial" about the tree setup.

Plus, he jokes. "This tree has MILEAGE."

I think - "The tree is not the only one."

Dobbin

 

[ainitfunny]

Actuaally, none, unless you count a 10" mini tabletop tree.
BUT that doesn't mean I have discarded celebrating the religious importance and significance of GOD LOWERING HIMSELF TO BECOME MAN IN ORDER TO SAVE THE HUMANITY HE LOVINGLY CREATED.

A gift to mankind of unimaginable significance and value.

The Joy of the Holiday, for the sake of including UNBELIEVERS, has been transferred, now secured by transient, meaningless and common things.

 

[billet]

No tree and no holiday celebration.

 

[SlipperySlope]

I do have a 1 inch bottle tree on my mantle but it is too small to decorate. That's it for me. I gave up the big celebration a few years back due to family problems. I have a large closet still full of the decorations I used to put up.

 

[TerriHaute]

We had real trees when the children were young. We used to go cut our own Christmas tree as a family each year and had a lot of fun doing so. When the children were older and we started heating with wood, we switched to an artificial tree which turned out to be more economical and allowed us to put it up sooner and keep it up longer.

I still put up a full-size artificial tree, mostly for the benefit of the grandchildren. I bought a nice pre-lit one several years ago and it still looks good. The original light strings only lasted one year. I replaced them with better LED light strings and it has been no problem ever since.

 

[nomifyle]

Always artificial because of allergies, now I don’t bother.

I lost all my decorations in Katrina including all the ornaments that we gave our sons a new one every year

 

[Redcat]

Artificial. I have only got the ceramic lit up tree my Mom made some fifty years ago up (so far).

 

[Timberline]

Our first Christmas in the house 1999, we got a potted live tree. We planted it in the front yard. Today, it is probably over 30 ft tall.

Yep, it sure has grown and still growing. Pic from last winter out here on the ridge.

 

[CaryC]

Haven't had a tree in something like 20 years. For some people all the decorations, music, crowded stores, etc get really, I mean really old after about the first 40 or 50 repetitions. It's especially sickening when Christmas music is played and adds are out before Halloween. Of all our holidays, Christmas is the only one overdone.

And it's a bit irksome for me anyway.

If anyone wants to have a tree no problem. But what I mean is:

In a commercial for Verizon before every replay of the World cup. There is Scrooge, and a woman brushing off snow from the verizon sign. And she says: Happy Holidays Scrooge!

You wouldn't have a Scrooge without.....A Christmas Carol. Not A Happy Holiday Carol.

So the Wokeness has made Christmas, even in the secular side of Christmas, a real dud of a celebration. And by all means don't try and make your conscience feel good, until you apologize for being white.

So I guess I've turned into a real life Scrooge, that is until I see the manger, and bow down.

 

[Jeff B.]

We switched to artificial about the time the kids started departing the AO. We've gone through a few, the first was a 9' prelit from Costco. I think two years after purchasing, about half the lights were out. So, just before New Years, I walked up to the Customer Service desk and inquired about returning it. A young gut looked it up and said, there's a recall on those trees, you weren't notified? To which I said, nope. The ladies did their "un-decorating" and I boxed it back up and toted it to Costco and got a full refund. The next season, I bought another similar if not the same type tree. Had that about two years. The wife then decided that it was too wide. So we ended up getting a "slim line" tree at a garden center on about a 50% clearance. Then I sold the Costco tree for about $200.00 which was a really good deal for the guy I sold it to...

We still have the slim line, but like many prelits, it's about 50 - 50 on lights, so the wife and daughters string lights before hanging the ornaments. I can foresee that we might downsize to a smaller symbolic tree and then move the celebrations to one of the kids homes... in the future.

 

[KFhunter]

We make a trek up the mountain every year with the kiddos to chop a tree, drink hot chocolate around a fire out of a stanley thermos, but this year I'm gimped up and kiddo is sick with the crud, so bought a $42 farm tree

It's pretty, 8 footer

 

[rafter]

No tree or decorations. I haven't put up a tree since DH died over 5 years ago. He was big on decorating and now that it is just me it just isn't worth the effort of putting it up and then putting it all away. Don't feel sorry for me.....I'm just that lazy. And with the way I work, I don't have time.