O tannenbaum....

I had to chose buy from a local lot. Used to cut our own down off our land until DH cut his leg with the chain saw. With the hospital bill, doctors bill, ect... it ended up being an expensive tree. It was cheaper to let someone else cut it down!

We cut a balsam from our property. THey plant themselves, and I thin and pinch them over time, and then we take one that needs thinning again.

we have two frasier firs that came from NC and 3 6' or more artificial trees..... what can i say? we love Christmas?

The local psychiatric hospital has a sale of lovely Christmas trees (Balsam from the Maritimes) run by its volunteers each year. We prefer a Balsam fir since they hold their needles well and we will keep the tree up until Jan.6. Most of the growers around here don't grow them or if they do, it's hard to find one tall enough - we've got a 10 1/2 ft. ceiling.

For years the whole family would tramp around in the bush until we found one we could all agree on. It helped a lot if we were good and cold. (In those days, they were mostly spruce).

Ann

We have a tree that my son cut & brought in from the woods. It's a Large cedar that had to be cut in 1/2! LOL Bless his heart - he means well. He got us one last year & the thing was 16' tall! :-O This year I told him to pick out one this year that was a little smaller & I guess that 13' Is smaller! :D

Joey

I picked mail-ordered but it was actually pre-ordered - it was cut on Wednesday and we got it on Saturday, but that was Saturday Dec. 1. Since then it's been sitting outside in a bucket of water - until last week, when it became a FROZEN bucket of water. Yesterday morning my husband and kids began to bring it in - the first job, of course, is to trim the bottom. The bottom was in a solid block of ice. So they brought the whole bucket in to thaw. Hours later, no thawing evident. My impatient daughter goes at it with a screwdriver and a hammer. Gives up. We wait. My husband works on the thing for a while. We wait. Finally we get the ice chunk small enough that it will fit in the stand - but then they're screwing it into ice, not tree... and it tilts... and they keep screwing... then it's straight. I watch from my wheelchair. Everyone leaves the room for a minute. THE TREE FALLS OVER!! I bellow, and they all come running back in, and do more screwing and tightening and adjusting - now it's perfect!

We buy it through our church because the trees at the local lots were all cut before Thanksgiving! xx, Carrie

We have an artificial one and we always buy a real one from a church lot also. A Blue Spruce this year - super pokey. Worked many a year on a Christmas tree farm - oh the glamor ;)

We had our last REAL tree about 7 yrs ago and placed it in a bucket of dirt........it lasted for weeks. Then went to an artificial one for a few years.......that one is gone forever!! We decorate with other Christmas goodies and have a living arborvitae in the front yard that now has red bows all over it, along with nandina berries.

I'm 47 and have never had a fake tree, it's not "allowed" in my family. LOL Also have never celebrated Christmas without Tourtière pie.

We usually get ours from a Christmas tree lot. Usually it is a very small tree. Sometimes we just decorate with greenery; but it is always real. We have a fairly small place and it just does not accommodate a large tree!

Sadly, allergies keep a real tree out of the house. I do have a fresh rosemary plant shaped like a tree and decorated, does that count? It smells wonderful, too.

yes, Cathy, that counts, and no trees were killed!

I have a ceramic tree. Actually two. I purchased one each for MIL, DM and myself years ago. MIL passed on and I got hers back. My old one is white, hers and my Moms are green. This is the only tree we use. We are older, with no family nearby and in a retail business. Hardly have time to look up at Christmas. We only have one day off Christmas day unless it is scheduled around our weekend and then if Christmas eve falls... we work. Oh well, it is a pretty tree and I managed to unpack it and "hang the lights" one more time. 8 ))

Merry Christmas!

This message was edited Dec 17, 2007 10:39 AM

Too many in our family with asthma for the real tree. Even the plastic has to stand outside a day or two or three to get the dust out with the wind. Also helps to fluff it. Nothing special anymore. Most of the family celebrations are at other places these days. Mainly like to set a pretty table for drop-ins.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Christi

I have a 3 foot Norfolk Island Pine that I sometimes decorate... don't think I'll do it this year though. Out in the front yard there's a dwarf Alberta Spruce that gets some serious lights and decorations every year. I consider that our Christmas tree, but no one else in the family does. Some years I get up the drive to go out and get a real tree (cut, from the local nursery). Usually, no one wants to help wrestle with it, so generally, we go without an indoor tree.

edited to say: Oh yeah! Merry Christmas!!

This message was edited Dec 17, 2007 11:05 AM

I voted for tree I cut myself, but that's not exactly true -- I had it cut at a tree farm about 2 miles from me. But that's not the same as a local lot, is it? Bozeman Tree Farm, Lumberton, Texas! Close to 7 feet tall, and at $22, you can't beat it with a stick. I'm not sure what kind of pine it is, but it's the kind that smells wonderful, that's for sure.

It's in my front window, with a gazillion lights, 3 dozen candy canes, and icicles. Looks great!

Artificial. I have slowly bought larger and larger trees until I have my tallest at 4 feet, then a 3-footer, an 18-incher, and a 1-footer. I set them up as a small forest in a corner by the TV.

Small house, see. A full-sized tree won't fit. Dead, dry pine trees don't inspire me, and I don't have anywhere to plant a real one at this time.

We have had a real tree for most of our lives but out here in So. CA they are getting pretty expensive and they dry up so fast. Last year I was talking to an old friend of mine and I mentioned that I would like to buy a nice artificial tree in the 'after Christmas' sales. She said she had one that they couldn't use anymore because it was to big for their new home and said I could have it. I hadn't purchased my tree yet so she had her husband deliver it to our home the next day. Woopee!! What a big beautiful tree it is.

I am also happy that I am saving my money and helping the environment with using this artificial tree now.

This is a picture of it from last year. I had just finished decorating it, so no gifts under it yet. lol

Happy Holidays to all.
Donna

I used to always have a real tree for Christmas. I married my husband 20 years ago and he had a 6 year old at the time. I learned, after several years of doing all the work of putting up the tree, decorating it, and taking it down all by myself, that neither one of them cared about having a tree of any type for Christmas. So I quit doing it and find I don't miss it. I do put a wreath on our door and we have presents and a very nice Christmas dinner, but I decided to heck with the tree and don't find I miss it all that much.

I love my pre-lit artificial tree. I always get scratched up and allergy-ee from a live one. For all the ornaments I have, I should have about four trees! But I don't put all of them up every year.

Most of my Christmas goes on at my DS and DDiL and DGK's house, so the tree is not as important as it used to be. But I can't have Christmas without 'some' kind of tree!

Me, too, on the allergies. I had to give up reluctantly on the real trees. We used to go cut our own. I actually have a bunch of artificial trees in all different sizes.

Fiber optic and then I burn some pine scented candles. lol

We have one live tree we cut ourselves, sometimes after an hour or so of looking at the tree farm. We also have three 3-4 ft artificial trees.

We have a very, tiny artificial tree. That is if I can get it away from my "helper".

SoCal, your place looks festive and great!

Growing up we almost always cut down our own trees on farms. Since moving south it seems there aren't nearly as many Christmas tree farms so we're left with selecting from pre-cut Christmas tree lots. Still....an okay trade if it means we can have real. I just hate storing things and setting up a fake tree would be more trouble.

I used to feel terrible cutting down these trees (carrie, you seemed to have that same view above) BUT then someone did point out to me that there would not BE Christmas tree farms even planted were it not for this single purpose. So for that reason I no longer feel bad about it.

And trees are recycled back to nature where I live so that's even better! I just love the scent of Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas everyone!

We went to a local tree farm and cut our own tree for the first time. What fun that was!!! Our city composts the trees too which is FANTASTIC!!!

Yankee, I love that photo!

I bought a Living Tree this year, and after Christmas, I'll plant it outside.

This message was edited Dec 17, 2007 1:47 PM

Forgot to post the picture of it.

We have one artificial 6 foot tree, two artificial 3 foot trees and one artificial tabletop tree. To go along with that we have many evergreens in our yard being that we live in the Evergreen State, I love it!

I love a real Christmas tree! The smell is wonderful in the house.
Yes it is a lot of trouble but well worth it to me.
After Christmas I put it out by our bird feeders in the snow, the birds love it.
As a ritual, it is the first thing that goes onto the first camp fire in early summer. It’s like paying homage to its life.
In the picture ,the funny thing on the wall is the stove pipe that I camouflaged to look like a deer(rudy) ,but this year we have the fire place in -I miss him...

I have oodles of pines and cedars growing on my land that can be cut for a Christmas tree but I switched to artificial because it takes about five minutes to set up. And I love the fiber optics. And no needle mess but I do miss the real tree scent.

Petal- Rudy is darling!

LOL at Rudy. How clever!

We have 2 real trees (one in kitchen, one in living room) from lots, two tabletop fake trees (one in dining room and one in upstairs bath), one skinny fake tree (in family room, always decorated with fishing ornaments) we've had for years, and a really ugly fake tree (on upstairs landing) I got off freecycle this year, which will be offered back up after xmas. This is 2 less trees than last year, but I may not be done yet! :)

Gwen

I picked ball and burlap but it's really a large rosemary in a pot that's shaped like a tree. It gets too cold here for most rosemary so it lives in the garage when it's not dressed up for christmas. Last Christmas we had young visitors so I decorated with bells, as well as the regular ornaments. The jingling bells worked kind of like a motion actived car alarm and no ornaments were broken.

I have an artificial tree and my family has had an artificial tree as far back as I can remember. So, strange as it might sound, an artificial tree is part of my heritage. No, don't think that such "artificiality" is typical of Hollywood. I grew up in Pennsylvania.

This message was edited Dec 17, 2007 5:13 PM

Man made tree since 1999

We have a big artifical tree that we put up most years but this year decided to do a small metal tree that holds Christmas cards. So our Christmas tree is made out of Christmas cards that we have recieved this year.