Ours is real fake. For safety reasons (I prefer not to risk burning the house down during the holidays) and I don’t have to buy a tree every year at $70 or more a pop for a nice one, we prefer the fake tree.
For the first half of our marriage, our yearly fight was about who got to put the lights on the tree. Matt hated doing it so he would throw them on as fast as he could (well, almost) and I hated doing it because I would spend hours putting them on very nicely. So once the cat destroyed the first ($5 after Christmas sale) tree, we bought a really nice big one with lights already on it.
I think this is year four, maybe five with this particular tree. I can’t quite remember. But last year it took a leap from a high location, which knocked out most of the lights. So, I spent many hours replacing hundreds of bulbs and got all but one strand to work. We also had a couple broken limbs.
This year several limbs are broken, fluffing it takes forever because the tree is so big and only 4 of the 15 strands of lights are working. Talk about frustrating. Something has got to give. As beautiful as that tree is, it’s done for after this Christmas. I’ll be vying for position the day after Christmas to get a new tree on clearance…with lights and smaller around in hopes that it will last a bit longer than this one did.
Oh, the things we go through for the sake of tradition! Do you have any tree stories?
Risking Life And Limb
Since we have a 2-story great room where our tree resides, I suprised my wife last year and bought a 13-foot pre-lit monster tree.
And then I had to do every thing they tell you not to do on ladders to get the thing up and decorated. My wife thinks I’m crazy because she’s scared of heights and seeing me up at the same level as the ceiling fans terrifies her.
Now we’re wondering if we should anchor the tree to studs in the wall so my one-year-old doesn’t bring it crashing down…
But it sure looks good in the room, tho…
My $.02 Weed
Synthetic..
About 5 years ago, we forgot to water our Tree (Kelly wanted to be in charge of it to prove she could keep plants alive.. after killing quite a few potted plants)
When we walked it out to the dumpster near our then-apartment, all the remaining brown needles fell off.. and I ended up throwing away branches only.. with needles on the ground in between my front door and the trash bin.
Ah well.. so yeah.. love the synthetic tree.. its up now.
Real….
We bought our artificial tree when we were stationed in Panama. As it turns out the time it takes for trees to be shipped from the states to Panama is enough time for them to pretty much die. We elected to go to the PX and by an artificial tree. I was skeptical about it since we had always had a real tree growing up. The artificial one turned out to be pretty nice, although not as conveinient as a pre lit tree. The biggest pain was to fluf out all the branches, which historically turned out to be Michelle’s job…:-) We moved into this house January 2002. Ever since then we have bought real tree’s. This year we found a great tree farm where we went on a Christmas tree hunt. We ended up finding a great tree for $35 which i thought was a great deal. We all had a great time.
So my vote is for the Real tree, nothing beats the fresh smell.
I’m surprised there were no
I’m surprised there were no real trees available in Panama. I have fond memories of my childhood in Costa Rica, when every Christmas we would go to an enormous Christmas Tree farm, and my sister and I would spend hours playing hide and seek while my Dad selected a tree and cut it down.
Then we’d take it home and set it up inside, on the other side of the glass from the palm tree and the mango tree. No snow, though. Ever.
…Me like Pine
Got the candle.. yup.. burn it and…
Mmm.. pine.
and cranberries!
Burn your pine candle with a cranberry scented candle. It’s an amazing Christmas smell! I bet you’ll love it! If you ever run out of pine candles, let me know. (I sell them!) Looks like we’ll be burning some this year as well, to go with our fake tree that won’t light up.
At this point, we’re ready to unplug the prelit tree, relight it with our own lights we have from days past, and chuck the tree once the year is over. GRRR ARGH!–
Christy