After 45 years as a married person...not counting my kiddie years...I saw those artificial balsam trees..... with the soft yellow incandescent lights... not the white...white LED..

No more needles
No more dragging
No more hunting
No more wondering WHERE the fragrance got to
No more gouging prices

So...do you have an artificial tree...
If yes...pros...cons...what type...metal, wood, painted on a wall, plastic...

Or are you sticking with the real...
What type...
What size....
Why?

Yes, we have an artificial tree, have had one since 84.

Pros: cost effective
easy to set up and take down
no needles
no fire hazard

Cons: no pine or balsam fragrance (understand you can get a spray if you want the smell)

At first I was not real excited about not having a fresh cut tree, after these several years, happy with the choice.

Tree looks real enough for the cats to still get into it.

Thanks!

The really authentic I am looking at ON sale with a 40 percent off are almost $900 and that is 6 foot. I divided $80 and $100 bucks into that and that would take me to 74,75,76 or thereabouts ..so the cost savings I think is going to the bottom of the benefits

Has anyone ever known a christmas tree that actually caught on fire.. cut fresh or artificial?

We use a 7 or 8 ft. artificial due to my mold allergies, doctor said real trees have too much mold. No wonder I would always get sick over the holidays plus the scent makes me sneeze. The last several years we have just used two small artificial table top trees much easier to put away.

We have always had fresh...but each year gets shorter and skinnier and more $$!

Always a fresh tree for us even in this desert area. Wonderful smell you will not get with the artificial ones and I would have no patience with putting it together each year if you have to dismantle it.

I think the newer ones just pop up. I have to look that up. Here in NC we have almost exclusively Fraser Fir. Pretty and perfect but a weak fragrance. I miss the balsam we had in the NE growing up...what a fragrance!

I have an artificial and we've had it probably 10 years maybe. It's 3 sections that pop together and since it's old we do have to plug the lights together inside instead of a quick connect. I love the look and feel of real but it's too much work to string the lights every year and keep the tree watered.

There are also ScentSicles that you can hang on the tree for the fresh tree scent.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Sce...

I would love a new fake tree here but I won't buy one without feeling the needles. The companies are cutting back and trying to save money so they feel like cheap plastic now and plus they are using needle designs of more than one type of tree on the same tree.

Good things to know

I have sticker shock ..i would hate to spend $$$ and get fly by night needles

We had always had real trees, but we finally broke down about 9 years ago and got an artificial one. If you can get them right after Christmas, the cost is cut by almost half. Maybe get a real one this year, and then buy the artificial one on sale.

I miss the smells of fresh trees, but I don't miss the needle mess, or having to give it water. I don't miss paying a fortune each year, and they do keep going up up up! I can just put my tree up, lights on, tree skirt around it and we're all set to go. We don't have room to store it set up, so we do take it apart, but it's only 3 pieces and goes back in the box quickly and easily. Ours looks real, and even fakes people out. We are happy with ours. Got it at Hobby Lobby.

Also Black Friday for good deals. They usually start selling out on that day in most places.

The nice thing about artificial trees you can put them up earlier if needed and take them down whenever. If your a procrastinator the whenever can be tricky. Artificial trees come in nice colors like white and silver!












May the holidays find your home filled with love!

So pretty!

Karen, hubby says that is a great idea!

This is a photo program I found...decided last year I may try to make my own Christmas cards.....maybe even then Ibwas thinking about getting an artificial and wanting to memorialize our last fresh cut.

I think for me it is just another farewell to a tradition and having difficulty making the leap to a new tradition...

This was the same tree. Fraser Fir...

Letting go of an old tradition really is hard. In our case, we used to cut our own when we lived near enough to do so. Otherwise we were at the mercy of the tree sellers who started putting them out earlier and earlier. In many cases they were already too dry to last until Christmas.
I sometimes procrastinate about taking them down, so the artificial trees make it easier. I hate vacuuming needles out of carpets!

We once left ours up until near Valentine's Day ..that was about the longest and it was still fresh, I put it outside hoping for the drying and the wafting of drying fir essence and it took forever to dry. A very tough tree.

I can imagine how much fun and memories being made as you chose and cut your own tree each year!

Cutting our own trees was a lot of fun! It's something most of the current crop of kids will never know. I am biased, but I think we had the best childhoods. So many of the kids are sedentary and just consumed by their electronic toys.