Christmas Real Or Fake?

[Sasha Distan]

So, what's your tree like? When do you/did you put it up? And what's on it? Any favourite, special decorations?

[Headstall]

I have a fake tree, and I put it up Dec 1st. We used to always have the genuine article, and I always cut it down from my own farm, but I don't like killing trees anymore... unless they're growing where they shouldn't  . I like to prune them, though. My kids have called me the mad tree barber in the past. Anyway, I have tons of trees outside, and they don't need lights and ornaments to be beautiful. Fake works for me now... inside. Merry Christmas!

[clochette]

I've got a fake little one at the apartment with little Christmas knick knacks and stickers on my windows that I put the first weekend of December.

I couldn't imagine spending December without Christmas decorations even if I'm not there during the holidays.

At my parents we have a big fake one, easier to clean (and mandatory with mom's job) that we put the 1st week-end of décembre but I miss the smell of a real tree.

Edited December 5, 2016 by clochette

[George Richard]

Usually we put up a fake tree (easy to put up, no falling needles) but this year we'll be out of town for the holiday so we'll be decorating our 6-foot potted Norfolk Island pine instead.

[Krista]

We do fake trees. Although the pine smell is nice, around here we just cannot buy a nice large and full Christmas tree... so to get a nice shaped one we went fake. Fake ones are also more durable around kids and animals... little grabby hands would probably shake a real tree down to bare branches before Christmas day.

 

We do have two trees though.. since we have room in the the master bedroom for one and our master bedroom has large windows, we display one up there as well. I've not put either of them up yet though. Shameful, I know.

[Caz Pedroso]

Our Christmas tree went up today.

 

We have a fake one as real ones are too expensive and messy.

[Reader1810]

Fake tree. Easier and not messy. Bonus: the white lights are a part of the tree so one less thing to put on it.

 

Funny thing about fake trees. Everyone I know always says that cats will only climb real trees. I wish somebody had told my cat that because he climbed it when he was a kitten and wouldn't let go of the trunk (quite a ways up, he was) when I went to pull him off of it. Tug of war ensued but I won.

 

As for the decorations: angels, crystal snowflakes and birds and bells along with a few more odds and sods that have no theme whatsoever

Edited December 6, 2016 by Reader1810

[clochette]

Funny thing about fake trees. Everyone I know always says that cats will only climb real trees. I wish somebody had told my cat that because he climbed it when he was a kitten and wouldn't let go of the trunk (quite a ways up, he was) when I went to pull him off of it. Tug of war ensued but I won.

oh yes I remember last year Looping napping in the tree. This year Mom is dreading putting the tree with 2 kitties

[DynoReads]

We have a fake tree. Unfortunately I'm allergic to conifers, particularly pine wood and cedar branches. Christmas with bronchitis is not fun.

 

When my son was small, we made a set of ornaments each year, something small and easy for kids, usually from salt dough. We'd keep the best best two and toss the rest. He lost interest around third grade.

Edited December 7, 2016 by DynoReads

[Kitt]

I guess I defy the norm around here, but I usually do!

 

Real trees all the way. My uncle owns and operates a tree farm. Every spring we help with the planting chores( We plant two for every one we cut. One will be culled at about the three year mark and used for wreathes etc, leaving the nicer shaped tree to mature.) We go back to harvest in November, so our trees are the freshest precuts out there. Most tree lot stock is cut late Sept or early Oct to allow for shipping time.

 

We set it up usually the first or second week of Dec, and don't take it down till after the 6th (the day the wise guys finally made it to Bethlehem).

[Former Member]

We always have a real tree, with real candles in it.

[Puppilull]

We always have a real tree, with real candles in it.

 

That sounds risky...! LOL 

 

We unfortunately have a fake one, but I would want a real one. Hubby got allergic a few years ago, so no... 

 

I remember growing up and my mother wanting to get us a tree. Some years in a row we got to the tree place after it had closed. My mom said she'd go back the next day to pay and that it was ok to take one. Only much, much later did I realize she had actually taken those trees... Not the best role model perhaps, but she wanted us kids to have a nice Christmas. But there was no money... So, for a couple of years, we celebrated with a stolen tree. 

[Former Member]

When I was a kid, my parents used to get a Douglas Fir (the cheap basic ones, not the fuller, groomed [butchered] types). After my mother started working, we started getting Noble Firs because the nice gaps between the limbs meant our ornaments hung nicer on the tree. (The trees that look like solid cones mean that ornaments hang out at a funny angle and look ridiculous.)

 

I live alone and no one is allowed to visit, so there's not much point to setting up and decorating a tree. I do have a little 3" artificial tree I bought a couple years ago, but I've looked into getting one of the bare-branch LED pre-lit trees to decorate.

 

Someday, I'd like to be able to decorate a tree or two with just my handmade ornaments (one with origami, the other with felt animals). I used to decorate my parents' tree by myself. I like homemade ornaments and toys as decorations.

 

I've never lived where it snows and my mother disliked flocking, no flocked trees (we used tinsel when I was very young). Miniature lights, but no candles. We stopped using the traditional hollow glass ornaments when we started using mostly handmade (or rustic-style) ornaments in the '70s.

[glitteryantlers]

We'll have a real tree at home, it'll only be decorated on Christmas Eve. The angel or the baby Jesus is supposed to bring the decorated tree, so we adults have a lot of plotting to do. Usually hubby does the decorating, I go for a walk or a ride with the kids. It was easier, when they were taking naps

The tree at work is already decorated with ornaments made by the employees' children.

At home we use some old ornaments, a few made by hubby when he was a child, I have some handmade ones too. Decoration except for the tree is usually put up on the first weekend of December. For St. Nicholas' day a figure climbing up to the roof, some stars, snowmen, 2 little fake trees in the kids' bedrooms. Christmas lights are important, every other year we buy something new.

[Ashi]

Oh gosh....  Given what's going on in my household, I'd happy just to have a tree....  Preferably a big, tall, full girth type of tree, but any tree will do nowadays.

 

So real or fake?  *sighs*

 

I'd like to have a real one, but thinking it's probably bad for my karma....  I am not a tree hugger per se, buuuuuttt..., the real one does smell better, less plasticky for sure.

[Former Member]

We'll have a real tree at home, it'll only be decorated on Christmas Eve. The angel or the baby Jesus is supposed to bring the decorated tree, so we adults have a lot of plotting to do. Usually hubby does the decorating, I go for a walk or a ride with the kids. It was easier, when they were taking naps

The tree at work is already decorated with ornaments made by the employees' children.

At home we use some old ornaments, a few made by hubby when he was a child, I have some handmade ones too. Decoration except for the tree is usually put up on the first weekend of December. For St. Nicholas' day a figure climbing up to the roof, some stars, snowmen, 2 little fake trees in the kids' bedrooms. Christmas lights are important, every other year we buy something new.

 

Did your tradition originate in Germany as our holiday tree tradition in the US did?

 

When I was growing up, the connection to my parents' Protestant beliefs was unclear and fairly tenuous. We did have religious ornaments on the tree including a miniature creche or two and things like angels. But I mostly erased that (unintentionally) when I took over the decorating.  ;-)

 

 

My own decorating is non-religious – as would be expected of an Agnostic!  ;-)

[W_L]

Oh gosh....  Given what's going on in my household, I'd happy just to have a tree....  Preferably a big, tall, full girth type of tree, but any tree will do nowadays.

 

So real or fake?  *sighs*

 

I'd like to have a real one, but thinking it's probably bad for my karma....  I am not a tree hugger per se, buuuuuttt..., the real one does smell better, less plasticky for sure.

 

Ashi if you want to release your guilt, just do this: after Christmas take up wood carving and make your partner a present every day as his present with the tree.

 

The tree's sacrifice will not be in vain and your house will be well decorates and furnished with pine smelling coat racks, spice trays, and wooden back scratchers

 

PS: Actually, that could be a great concept/plot for a Christmas story, a guy with a gift giving problem for his partner decides to give him a small gift every day over the year made out of their Christmas tree. Do you think Hallmark will buy my story rights and make a TV movie

Edited December 7, 2016 by W_L

[wenmale64]

We have a small fiber optic tree.  It really is not much, but as we both spend most of our time working and have no kids except the cats (see avitar) the small sparkley light tree serves the purpose.  We enjoy the idea of Christmas and each others company so the little tree works for us.

[Hunter Thomson]

Real. A douglas fir is going down for my enjoyment. It'll get hauled up to the house in a week or two. I think this year I'm going to throw away the salt dough ornaments I made as a child, that one star cookie is almost as old as Drew.

[Former Member]

We had some of those dough ornaments I bought in the '80s – until one year we opened up our ornaments and found bugs had been eating them! We threw them all away immediately!

 

 

Between that cheesecake in Hunter's avatar and all the food descriptions and recipes in the Advent Calendar anthology, I need to find some desserts right now!  ;-)

[Former Member]

We have just glass spheres, which shimmer like soap bubbles and some glass and steel snow crystals and a very few dark red glass spheres. Nothing to eat.   

But with my risky but absolutely unavoidable real candles beautiful.

[Ashi]

Ashi if you want to release your guilt, just do this: after Christmas take up wood carving and make your partner a present every day as his present with the tree.

 

The tree's sacrifice will not be in vain and your house will be well decorates and furnished with pine smelling coat racks, spice trays, and wooden back scratchers

 

PS: Actually, that could be a great concept/plot for a Christmas story, a guy with a gift giving problem for his partner decides to give him a small gift every day over the year made out of their Christmas tree. Do you think Hallmark will buy my story rights and make a TV movie

 

A wooden back scratcher?!?  Oh my....  *mind drifts off*

 

By all means write the story, but I get to be the executive producer at least! 

[Timothy M.]

Since Denmark is one of the world's largest producers of (Nordmann fir) Christmas trees - which we call juletræer - only a real tree will do.

 

and of course we decorate them with small Danish celebration flags http://satwcomic.com/christmas-traditions  and http://satwcomic.com/flag-day-every-day 

Edited December 7, 2016 by Timothy M.

[clochette]

Nothing to eat. 

Mom always buy little chocolate umbrellas, Santas, balls to hang in the tree and around the house. I dont know how but they always seem to disappear

[Sasha Distan]

There's usually chocolate on our tree.

 

tinsel, lights, the whole shebang. Pretty much every ornament tells a story, a person who bought it for us or a place where we were.

 

And it must always, always, be decorated whilst listening to The Very Last Goon Show of All, to which I now know all the words and sketches.