GAH! I don’t know the answer. I grew up with a fake tree. Probably out of convience, but also because my brother is allergic to trees. Now we’ve had a real tree for a few years. I love the smell, but I agree it can be a bit of a hassle. Either way, we have to lock the dog up while we’re gone so that she doesn’t eat the ornaments.
Regarding the environmental issues, I see both sides.
I think we might stick with real until my husband puts his foot down and refuses to get one any more. I’ve just been so excited to actually have a real tree for the first time in my life.

I grew up with fake trees, and my husband grew up Jewish so he didn’t have a Christmas tree. This past year was our first married Christmas, and we decided to try out a real tree. We got one from Whole Foods on Black Friday, absolutely loved it, and are never going back. It stayed fresh and smelled amazing the entire time we had it up.

I agree that real trees are a major pain! We bought a really nice pre-lit fake tree from Costco a few years ago and love it. Easy to set up and take down. While I do kinda miss the smell of a real tree, I just go out and buy those awesome Christmas candles instead 😉

Growing up we had the same fake tree for 20 years. It was actually my dad’s grandmother’s fake tree. That thing was probably 35+ years old when my mom finally chunked it. She just got tired of all the assembly every year and bought one that wasn’t as plastic-y and was pre-lit.

This will be my third Christmas together with my husband. We bought a fake tree our first Christmas but it’s been in storage the last year because we are building a house and our rental is tiny. I have a small potted Norfolk Pine I have been growing indoors for the last two years and I will decorate that for this year. So I guess I have a real and a fake tree?

I grew up with real trees until my Mom finally put her foot down about 10 years ago (I was 18 by that point) and demanded we get fake. She is highly allergic so she suffered every year. She’s also a major neat freak so all the needles drove her crazy. My parents have a really nice fake tree and sometimes it is pretty said that we unpack it, but it beats all the things you mentioned above that are a hassle about real trees. The tree doesn’t have lights; my Dad takes great pride in wrapping the tree in lights every year! My boyfriend and I argue about what we’ll do our first Christmas living together. I’m so used to a fake tree now that I prefer it but I think I’d like to give real trees a shot for a few years. He is dead-set on a real tree!

Ok I am very passionate about this one :)!Cutting the tree is killing the tree. No matter that there is 1-3 trees planted afterwars, you kill the plant for a few weeks of fun. I don’t understand why very environmentally aware people would do so. My parents have same plastic tree for 30 years and we got very pretty plastic one last year

I live in Oregon, Christmas tree capital of the world. There is NO WAY I’d get a fake tree. Real is a bit of a hassle, but nothing compares 🙂

Fake tree vs real tree?? I enjoyed the real thing for many years and most younger people will do the same. I do understand what you’re saying about the mess though. I have gone funky. Now it’s about nice room decorations, and the simple act of plugging in a small forest of three …yes, fiberoptic trees. Takes me back to mid century America 🙂 AND – no mess, pretty glow, very relaxing.
PS: Most people don’t read the warning of the Christmas lights..must wash hands after putting on the lights due to chemicals on the cords – go figure.

100% real trees forever!! I just LOVE everything about Christmas trees and the tradition of finding a tree, cutting it down, getting it home, decorating it, etc. It’s some of my favorite memories growing up and last year Andrew got to experience cutting down a tree for the first time. It makes me happy. NO fake trees around here. And as real as they may look, they don’t smell good. And hey, I don’t even mind vacuuming the needles as they fall. 🙂

I didn’t give it nearly as much thought as you, but we had a real tree for the first 8 years of our relationship. Every year we would spend $50 and every year it would die 3 days after we bought it (no matter where I bought it and how much I paid). Last year we bought a fake tree on sale at Lowes ($160 in the Boston area). It was fabulous! I thought I would hate it but the convenience was so awesome. It’s not the best quality but it works well for us. And I love that we can have it up all month long and not worry about it dying. I’m curious to see how well it’s held up for year #2, but we were very careful with putting it away neatly.

My friend used to give her christmas trees to her Alapacas that she raised for wool. They loved it! Especially because they were bored in the winter. She wanted to get her entire neighborhood to donate their trees to to her farm, but she wasn’t sure if other trees were heavily sprayed.

Team Pre-Lit Fake Tree all the way, baby! No more finding needles in March, dealing with a tangled mess of lights, etc. If it’s the smell you miss, Yankee Candle makes a lovely pine scented candle. 🙂

Wait until after Christmas to buy one and you can probably find one for 50% off. I think we got ours at Big Lots or Hobby Lobby and it was very affordable (paid for itself in far less than 7-9 years)!

My mom got a fake tree that was a little more expensive (probably a little over $100) back when I was pretty little so late 80’s early 90’s. That thing lasted until last year and the only reason she really had to get a new one is because our cats enjoyed chewing on the lower branches and then the rest of the branches started to look kind of sad from having a bajillion ornaments put on and taken off every year 🙂 She would leave the lights on and the tree put together year round and just put it in the basement with a sheet over it so that helped the wear and tear. So that was at least 25 years of good use out of the fake one.

Real Trees all the way! I’m passionate about this one – I grew up on a Christmas Tree Farm, and my parents still make a living growing and selling Christmas Trees. The ONLY acceptable excuse (in my book) for a fake tree is allergies.

Are you cutting your trees fresh from a farm, or buying them from a lot? If they are from a lot, they should ideally be displayed in water – and if they aren’t, you need to have them give you a fresh cut on the trunk before you take it home. It will improve water intake dramatically, and you shouldn’t have to deal with as much needle loss. Also – the type of tree matters. Fraser Firs are great at keeping their needles. Other types of fir trees need to be treated with folicoat – a waxy substance that helps with needle retention. Or, go with a spruce – they are so pokey you can guarantee that Henry won’t grab it more than once!

Details aside, I can attest that purchasing a real tree supports American jobs – typically, jobs for those that may have trouble finding other types of work due to lack of education or qualifications. Farmers put a lot of love into those trees! They are worth the hassle.

I love the convenience of a fake pre-lit tree. But I grew up always have fake trees, since my family has pretty bad allergies. So I think I’m pretty biased. 🙂

We had a potted real tree that we bought inside each year for the month of December. It was great as it grew with us, and being alive didn’t drop nearly as many needles. Real living tree is the way to go!

I had this same debate with myself last year! I actually bought a fake one and then returned it once my cat started chewing on the nasty pvc branches. I will now have a child during Christmas time and just the idea of off gassing and them possibly eating some needles makes me go for real. I always had real ones as a child and as long as I can lift the tree into the house and get it into the stand I want the tradition on tree trimming to be in my family. The pesticides suck, but you can find a responsible grower.
I have memories of holding the lights for my dad to string up and figuring out every year how we would maximize brightness. I don’t think you get the same Christmas cheer with a fake one. Plus finding the perfect tree can make for such a fun and memorable family outing!

Real tree all the way!! You don’t get that incredible piney/evergreen earthy smell with fake trees. Plus when you touch them to put on the ornaments/lights you’re reminded that slowly your life is being taken over by plastic man-made products.

Real trees all the way! You didn’t mention the smell, I LOVE the smell of a fresh pine tree! I have the best memories of bundling up with my family, going to the Christmas tree farm, and cutting down our own tree in the snow. Yes, they are messy but I think it’s worth it. When we’re doing with the tree for the season we don’t throw it out, we put it outside for the birds to live in for the winter and then it eventually breaks down and goes back into the earth.

My husband and I buy our trees from TROSA which is a drug rehabilitation program for addicts which focuses on giving them meaningful jobs to do as part of their rehabilitation. They provide awesome service each year and even put fabric on top of the car to protect it before tying it on for us!

Real tree for the win!! There is just something magical about going to pick out a tree, and I really do love it. Then you get the fresh smell of tree through out the season. It is a must for me.

This is a good one that my husband and I still are undecided on. We have had a fake one for a couple years (bought it used so it was on its last leg ha) but now that we got rid of that we are going to the woods this year (with a permit) to cut down our own real tree! I have never done this but he did it as a childhood tradition that his family loved. I am excited about the idea of making a fun day out of getting the tree but not so excited about cleaning up pine needles. We shall see where the debate lands. Something to add: fake trees are more itchy and difficult to put up/take down in my opinion, plus you have to be cautious with storage because you want it to last a long time. PS: hilarious link to the shower curtain debate! My husband does this and it drives me bonkers!! haha

I swore I would never have a fake tree growing up. Once I got in high school I made my parents take me and I would cut a real tree down to avoid them purchasing a fake one (one advantage was my dad grew christmas trees & sold them when I was growing up). However, now that I am married, and would really like to have a real one again, the fake ones are so convenient. No water spilling on the floor (hardwood to boot), no drying out and needles all thru the carpeting (again hardwood a plus), and having to rely on hubby to go buy one or cut one down. I just pull it out of the basement and set it up myself. Already in the stand and everything. Really nice, but I do miss the smell of a nice blue spruce tree. If I had my way, I would probably still have a real tree. They are really nice and Christmasy!

I am a real tree girl all the way. My husband was a fake tree guy. I won that one for years. LOVED the tradition of shopping for the tree and bringing it home. Our kids just loved it too. I didn’t like how much the nicer real trees were costing and sometimes they irritated allergies in our house. We also got tired of the tree dying before Christmas and we couldn’t have the Christmas lights on as much as we wanted for fear of spontaneous combustion. I never wanted to invest the money in a fake tree though so we kept on buying the real trees. When a friend of ours offered to give us their too large for their home fake tree we jumped at the chance. So now we have a fake tree that looks remarkably real and we can put it up at Thanksgiving and not worry about it dying. I would like to do real trees again one day but right now this works for us. And we couldn’t beat the price 🙂

I used to feel the way you do about a real tree – smells so good, all the little extras, like getting it, etc. Then one year my husband made me take it down almost a week before Christmas because it was losing its needles and he was afraid of a possible fire. I decided I REALLY loved this man who wanted to keep me and our kids safe, so we’ve had a fake one ever since. A couple of really beautiful ones, bought after Christmas when it was on sale – always lovely and loved by all. We’re old, now, and the one we have is a small (3 ft) fiber optic tree, which sounds weird, but we were told by a Hospice grief counselor to “get something different for this holiday”. You see, our beautiful baby granddaughter died in late October, after a valiant 2-year battle with a brain tumor. This tiny tree is certainly different! That was 14 years ago, and we still love it. And it brings us peace, strangely enough.

I LOVE real trees, but they give me horrid asthma attacks, so we go the fake route.

Fake trees all the way! I am far too lazy to tend to a real tree and I love our rather sad looking fake tree we bought on clearance after Christmas <– the BEST way to get a tree for cheap! I've also been running past a real tree that someone just threw in a ditch for the past year (still has garland on it!!) so I have become (probably unfairly) super resentful of the wastefulness that real Christmas trees are.

We’re having one of each this year! A white fake one (…I know!) in our kitchen (which is bright turquoise), and then our traditional freshly chopped one in our living room. The white one will be a surprise for our kiddos, and I can’t wait to decorate it. I was always against fake trees growing up, but some of them look so lovely, and more and more people I know are allergic to the real ones, so I think it’s great that people can find a realistic (or bright white, or pink, or black, or whatever) fake ones too.

I say fake only because I am allergic to real Christmas trees. A few years ago my mom got a real tree and I had a horrible rash. The only thing we or the doctor could figure out was that I was allergic to the tree. My hubby is bummed out every year but I am not going through that again!!