In Defense of the Fake Christmas Tree

I have never once had a real tree in my life. My parents always had an artificial tree and I just sort of followed in their footsteps. The past couple of years I have wanted to get a real tree, but our tight Christmas budget has kept us reusing our artificial tree. Maybe someday we will venture over to the other side. Although I don't know if I am a fan of the smell. Can you get a tree that doesn't have a scent?

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We also weighed the options a couple of years back and decided that with what we spend on a real tree, we could pay a bit more and buy a gorgeous fake tree that will last for years. Financially, it made good sense and has already paid off. What we didn't realize is just how easy it would make the holiday decorating. We can put up the tree whenever we have time and feel like it. No planning the day to go and hunt it down, leaving it outside for the branches to fall for a day, getting it in and set up, then finally adding the decorations! Now its just unbox, put up, decorate, enjoy. And it looks so real that when I walk out in the mornings, I can still smell that fresh pine scent -- just a trick of the mind, but a delightful trick indeed.

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I'm surprised and more than a bit saddened you never once mentioned the environmental impact of growing all those trees, cutting them down, shipping them around, and finally throwing them in the landfill. I find it very sad that people still use a tree that was once alive, bring it into their house, screw it into a bowl of water, then place ornaments on it, lights and look at it. Then when the tree, which was once alive, begins to dry out, the needles fall to the floor and it becomes a hassle. Then the final unadornemnt of the tree, and trek to the curbside. Very sad. A tree which has been nothing more than a stand to place ornaments on. Why must it be a "real" tree anyway? I have a "real" tree. True, it was made in Hong Kong, and it is synthetic, like mush of everything else I buy. It is a tree, however, and by the time I get through draping all the garland and ornaments on it, suddenly the "tree" disappears, for it is only a support for the beauty that is draped on it. I find nothing beautiful about a tree, once alive, but now dying and drying in an overheated and dry home.

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I have to hand it to my parents. After 6 kids, numerous pets, and 47 years of marriage, they still get a real tree every year. I love it.

I always thought I'd buy real trees, but since I've always worked multiple jobs which somehow always seem to have rush times during the holidays. One year we found a nice, realistic fake tree already strung with lights. It was a b..bear to set up and would be a pain every year, since it's all about bending each branch to look like the real thing. We never got around to putting it back in the box. It's been up for about 10 years or so.

Last year was my first year with kids. The thought of doing a "real tree" for my kids is nice and quaint. But it's not happening. Maybe if I had a husband, but not on my own.

I do give kudos to those of you who manage to do it every year. I think it's a wonderful tradition and I'm just too lazy.

As for the environment - given that the trees are grown in nurseries for the specific purpose of being cut down and recycled, I don't see a big environmental impact of real trees. Growing evergreen trees is far better for the environment than growing deciduous trees - they put a lot more oxygen into the air. And when they go to that big arboretum in the sky, it's not like they go into plastic bags to be buried in a landfill. They get chipped up and sent back into the environment in a responsible way. Plastic trees, unless used for many years, are probably worse for the environment.

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We had a real tree ONCE when I was about 8 or 9 (our fake one was ruined in our move), and everyone in the house got sick as a dog because we were all allergic lmao!! After that, my mom bought a nice fake one and it was all I knew. A few years ago, my mom and I bought a pre-lit one, and it was great! Last year, after Christmas, we hit the sale at Wal-mart - the tree we wanted was marked down 50%, so we held out....after New Year's, it was 75% off, and they actually had one (and only one!!) left....we grabbed it! $45, for a $150 tree, baby! It was great!

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I can't go fake... I just can't. Even if we only have enough money to get a tiny tree, that's what it would be. I had a fake tree once, when I had a roommate who was allergic. It did nothing for me. I love going to the christmas tree lot with the kids. They help pick out the tree and then it is tied on top of our car. Some years there is cursing as my husband and I try to get it straight on the stand, and other times (like this year) everything seems to go just perfectly. In the end. I love seeing a few needles strewn on the floor. I love that when I unpack the stockings each year, I'll find an old needle or two....

After the holidays, we cut our tree in half and it is then recycled into wood chips -- it doesn't get dumped in a land fill.

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I grew up with wondrerful trees cut from our farm acres and I never thought to have anything else. Snce my marriage we have even had couple of living trees to plant on our property. But 8 years ago I spent $60.00 on a lovely PERMANENT tree. And it is a great investment. We are in our 70's now and I doubt we would have a tree wthout this. It looks real and is so beautifully shaped. I don't really want fragrance; but I could get some pine-sol, or a spray??

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I grew up with real trees. I loved everything about them, from going to the lot to choose it, to the Chevy Chase, "Griswold" moments of sap all over my fingers after putting it up.

And never once, not ONE time, has our tree ended up in a landfill. Either we'd put it on the edge of our property for the birds to use as shelter, or it would go to the local forest preserve district, where they put it up as windbreak and shelter for small birds and animals. Eventually, the trees would decompose, providing more nutrients for the air and soil.

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I always believed strongly in having a REAL tree, and sort of looked down my nose at those who had artificial ones. I thought I was a better "mom" because I went ALL OUT with the traditional Christmas decorations.

Then one year I was watching our home video's of Christmas past and realized my daughter was always sick with a "chest cold" in all of them. I mean "on her hands and knees hacking up a lung" sick! Two seperate video's showed us arriving at grandma's house with a bag full of cough & cold medicine and supplies.

It turned out she had been living with undiagnosed mild asthma that was severely aggrevated by weeks of exposure to the real trees I forced upon our family every year.

We've had a "fake" tree ever since, and our home video's now show a healthy and happy child opening her Christmas presents.

Maybe if I hadn't been so obsessed with my selfish ambition to create a perfect & traditional Christmas atmosphere, I might have noticed the connection sooner.

That experience changed me in such a positive way. I'm a far less judgmental and self absorbed person. Too bad it took a sick child to teach me that important lesson.

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When I was very young, in kindergarten or first grade, my parents went to this Christmas store and spent a lot of money on a beautiful big fake tree. More than they should have probably, but that tree lasted for many years and many memories. We would all get together as a family and put the tree together, then we'd help my father put lights on it - as many lights as he could put on it! The year before he passed away my junior year in high school, he put five thousand lights on that fake 7-foot tree and programmed with several Mr. Christmas blinker boxes. Then we would all decorate it with all the ornaments we had in the house - ornaments we inherited from the great grandparents, ornaments we bought each year, one for each of us kids, ornaments we made back in nursery school. The tree was completely full of ornaments, balls, stars, you name it! Then my mother's job was to put all the tinsel on the tree and then we would turn off all the lights and then TURN ON THE TREE.

Fake or real, Christmas tradition is what you make it.

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You know, if everyone walked to their local tree farm and cut it down, then took home their dead tree, then composted it or whatever,, fine. Unfortunately very few do this. I see many, many trees on the side of the road for the next several weeks after Christmas, FACT. Until everyone does as the above, then my fake tree will still have less environmental impact than an average tree purchased in this country. The sad truth. It is nice to just throw it up, it doesn't take long, the lights are already on it. I love it. I'll keep it until it falls apart, I'll bet it will be longer than 10 years.

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We buy our trees with the roots. After Christmas, we plant the trees. My mom has a great sound barrier (she lives on a state highway), and my sister and I have 3 acres that we can fill. I love the smell of a real tree, and I never plan to use a fake one.

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