Who has an Artificial Christmas tree Who has a Real Christmas tree?

[Danceswithchicks]

We haven't gotten ours yet,but it's going to be a real one. Christmas trees-the perfect way to confuse your pets. I don't think it's so bad to cut down a tree, especially when my chickens poop enough to fertilize 100 trees!

 

[teach1rusl]

I ALWAYS used a real tree until we moved into this house, where we use two wood stoves in the winter time. I figured a real tree would simply dry out and become a fire hazard too soon here...

 

[Danceswithchicks]

I have a woodstove, but it's in the basement,so no fear!

 

[Rosalind]

Real trees that smell great. I sewed an extra-big square tree skirt some years ago, and it really does help catch the needles--you just sort of judiciously fold up the tree skirt and shake it clean outside. Replace before anyone touches the tree and makes it drop more.

Also, we've gotten fir trees ever since we were able to afford them. Fraser firs are the best, those things don't shed hardly at all. They aren't cheap though.

Had a neighbor growing up who kept her kids busy making "bird ornaments" over the holiday break: popcorn balls rolled in peanut butter, then in birdseed, stars made out of popsicle sticks spread with peanut butter and birdseed, odd-looking things made of cornshucks and millet sprays tied with twine (I'm guessing an eight-year-old's rendition of an angel?), strings of sliced apples and oranges. After they took the ornaments off the real tree, she'd have the kids decorate the tree again with the bird ornaments, and they put that out in the backyard.

 

[houndit]

Dug it out of our own woods.

 

[77horses]

we have an artificial tree. Just set it up yesterday! We've had it in our family for 10+ years and it still looks beautiful when it's all lit up!

I like real trees, too. They smell soo good! But last year we got one from our own woods and it turned out to be a "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree".

It was really small and poor-looking, but when we put the decor and lights on it looked fine.

To make our fake trees even better, my dad adds this perfume stuff that smells like pine and it makes it smell like a real tree.

 

[Illia]

We have an artificial one - We don't really want to think that a tree is cut down, then dies some time later every year. It is a lot of money over time, so, we use the same fake one every year. It's still pretty and realistic.

Also, we have plenty of "christmas trees" in our backyard. It's called a coniferous forest, haha!

Although it was logged recently, there are still four special ones left standing, a couple baby spruce that were missed on the edges, and a blue spruce I planted up front years ago (plus my neighbor behind me still has a standing forest, as well as my neighbor's stand to the west of us and an annoying line of trees to our south, across the road, which blocks out all of the winter sun. .

) - I just wish I had the lighting and ability to climb our 100+ foot trees and decorate them.

 

[alpinefarm]

We've done it all ways...artificial, potted Norfolk pine for years, bought cut commercial trees or went to the forest to cut one on permit (when we lived in the city) and now that we live in the woods, it is easy to go cut one of our own balsam firs to bring in, as we can pick one in an area that could use thinning. But we've found we just love decorating an outdoor tree the most. Gets us outside and thinking about the winterworld of the animals around us, the miracle of how they manage to get thru the cold times. Although we create our own electricity here, and don't have a lot to spare, we have put lights on our outdoor tree and plug it in for a while in the evenings. Very magical here in the dark wilderness with the stars the only other light and makes the season seem unusually special.

About forest management, since some have shared their thoughts: We've had some very disasterous federally-sponsored clear-cuts in our area and also some city folks coming up to cut Christmas trees in the forest around us (on permit, but often trespassing in the wrong areas and sometimes even taking trees from our land) and my impression is that tree-cutting by govt entities is not always done with noble intentions or sensible planning. It is sometimes simply a money-making tool and the knowledge and opinions behind it are only as good as the responsibility of the people in charge of making those "calls"....just my observations after living in the wilderness for 11 years and watching the evolving intelligence and the turnover of staff in control of the trees.

 

[SunAngel]

We have always had a real tree. My dad and I would go to tree farms when I was younger and every year since we have been married, my husband and I have gone to a tree farm to cut down our christmas trees. I wanted a neat tradition to give my kids, as I always remembered the long walks in the snow, looking for the perfect tree.

We went yesterday during our first snowfall, it was very pretty and Christmassy. Maybe one of my last Christmases with all of my kids here (my daughter will graduate in the Spring), so it made for a neat memory.

I will definitely continue to go get a fresh tree until I can no longer safely walk out to cut one down. I could not imagine Christmas without the real pine smell.

 

[Wildsky]

Artificial, we used to get real tree's years ago, but just found it easier to have the artificial with the lights already on it

The kids just got done today putting on all the ornaments!