QOTD: Christmas trees...again! Real or fake?

Jstas

Yup, again. But this isn't about decorating. I'm guessing those of us who are on here are either at work and bored or jumping on as time allows in preparation for family gatherings tonight. So we'll keep it short and sweet.

Christmas Trees, real or fake? What kind do you have? Feel free to tell us why if you have the time. If not, do as you will. Either way, Merry Christmas!


Me? Either one, I don't mind either kind. I have a fake tree but I've been given real trees as a gift and I'm certainly not going to waste them!

However, I remember seeing one tree and I wanted to get it but it was, alas, sold. It was a tree that resembled the Christmas tree from the Dr. Seuss cartoon "How The Grinch Stole Christmas". It was tall and bent over at the top with a giant red ball dangling from the tip of the tree. I would have paid a thousand bucks for that fake tree and ball and I have been completely unable to find one since.

superjunior

ol plug and play for me

zingo

I have real this year, but will probably be going fake in the near future.

bigaudiofanatic

fake have to build it up though.

beardog03

I have a Charlie Brown tree with one red bulb

sucks2beme

I bought a fake on closeout about 15 years ago. Cheaper than 1 real tree,
and so far so good. If I had my way, I wouldn't put one up at all.

Knucklehead

fake, we put it up so early a real one would be dead as hell.:p

jflail2

Real. You can't beat the smell, and it goes to the woodpile January 1st. Granted I paid $60, but it was for a local boy scout troop, so I had no problem at all spending my $$ there.

PolkThug

I prefer real, but the wife makes us have fake. I like coming home to the smell of a real tree.

John30_30

what follows is a true story of the Meaning of Christmas:

We live in a semi-rural area, and there are plenty of western red cedars on pastures and acreages. They are an allergen-producing abomination of an evergreen. The pollen will carry 250 miles on an average wind to inflict sinoidal misery, so a warm front from Texas is always a mixed blessing.

About 20 years ago, give or take, around this date, there was a call for firetrucks and volunteers across the street from the retirement home, about half a mile down the street.
I happened to be driving by on my way home, the fields across from the Nursing Home were charred or in flames, and cedars looked like giant candles. A car by the side of the road was also pretty well charred. Seemed like it was half good work by the firemen, half good luck it wasn't a windy night.

I got the story a few days later. The car belonged to a woman from Edmond who was too cheap to buy a tree, and who decided the closest place she knew to cut one free was 40 miles away. So she drives down here one evening, leaves the car running by the side of the road, and hops the barbwire to cut a free tree.
Only problem is it's often drought conditions here around December, the grass is bone dry, and her catalytic caught the grass on fire, which spread like, well, wildfire. Which, lacking a wind, spread west to the pasture, rather than across the street to the Nursing Home.

Basically no major harm done, the pest trees grew back, and the locals got a good Lucy & Rickie episode.

Rickie: "Honey, where's the car?"
Lucy: "Wahhhh, Rickieeeeee."
Rickie: "LUCY! You got some splainin to do!"


To answer the question, my wife is the one who used to go apeshit psychotic over that stuff every year, although she's finally mellowed down from full-blown, christmas-decorating certifiable (once the kids left home and her hormones torqued down) to outpatient status, and all that.

She puts a plastic tree in the office, drapes lights outside but doesn't bother to turn them on.

She's from New Jersey originally, but I think she's mainly cured of that too.

bobman1235

If you're going to bother decorating, do it right - real tree.

Honestly, with a fake tree, why bother?

Ricardo

Fake, with built in lights. Looks really nice, fast and easy.

superjunior

bobman1235 wrote: »

If you're going to bother decorating, do it right - real tree.

Honestly, with a fake tree, why bother?

ever get a pine needle in your foot? them little suckers hurt

Tony M

My wife and I grew up with mostly fake trees so for our own home we went real for almost 20 yrs. Now the past 2 years it's only been a 2 foot fiber optic light show tree and a fiber optic light show (a nice one now)Angel.Realy no presents wraped for this year either.

I love that real tree smell to so a pine scented candle does for now.

halo71

Real tree here. After Christmas, it has a dual purpose. As I throw it in the water off my dock. Makes good hiding place for the brim later in the year. Which my little girl like to fish for.

When I can find them I sometimes will get a real tree with the ball (roots and all) still attached. Then after Christmas I will plant it somewhere on our property.

Rivrrat

We have a nice fake tree. The only trees you can get in the desert that don't cost a fortune are Charlie Brown looking trees, and coming from Wa. St., my tree expectations are pretty high.

FWIW, I was watching HD Theater on Dtv today, and they had a program on the history of Christmas trees. It was interesting, but what floored me was they called fake trees an environmental disaster....Upon which I went "Huh?"

Well, their point was that all those trees in all those tree farms farms convert co2 into oxygen, and fake trees reduce the need for real trees, thus cutting down the amount of trees cleaning the atmosphere. Also, conifirs are the best since they never loose their leaves (needles).

It just goes to show you can never make a tree hugger happy.