Trees....tell me about yours!

[Witchy Cowgirl]

No matter what your celebrating this time of year one of the major decorations is a tree. I think it would be interesting to hear from ya'll on this subject....

1. Which do you prefer....real or artificle?
Me and mine? real trees. We always had a real tree when I
was growing up. Now that me and my brother are grown and
have our own familes, Mama uses and artificle one.

2. What ever your prefrence....what do you use?
Some folks who would prefer a real one use a artificle one for
various reasons. We use a real one. Usually we cut it
ourselves. Sometime a cedar tree, sometimes another kind.
Where we live there seems to a nursery every mile. There
happens to a an abandoned nursery on the farm. We usually
cut one there, and we go as a family. The most beautiful
memory I have of picking a tree was a couple of year ago we
actually had snow before Chirstmas, my brother and his family
came over and we all went to pick cut a tree. It was the first
time I had cut a tree in the snow. The kids were runninng in
and out of the trees. Knocking off snow, throughing snowballs
sledding! When we got home we did the hot cocoa.
WONDERFUL!

3. If you use a real tree, what do you do with it after the season?
Usually ours gets added to our wood. (We burn wood for
heat.) This year I plan to keep a chunck of the wood, charge
it, maybe decorate it, then keep it in the house till next year
to help Bestow Blessings of the Season throughout the whole
year. Then next season it will be added to the Yule fire.

[Witchy Cowgirl]

OH! One more question....

4. Is yours up yet?
Not ours. Since we heat with wood and because I leave it up
till after the new year, we put ours up somewhere around the
15th.

[CloakofStars9]

we have had a fake one since i was 10, it lasted us 11 years and was well worth the money, we now have a new fake one with lights already built in, i love real trees but due to my cats loving to eat and throw up the pine needles we decided long ago this would be easier...we always set up right after thanksgiving too :)

[Azure]

Real, just put it up, it has lights on it, but I haven't gotten to the rest of it yet. It will eventually end up in the fireplace, after the season is over.

When I was little and we lived in NY State, my Dad, who's a big bird hunter (yeah, I have a million quail recipes), would pick out a good tree on some farm land where he hunted. After getting the farmer's permission, he would bring us all back there a month or so later to "find" the tree - usually in about 3 feet of snow, and we would cut it down and take back to the car on a toboggan.

It was a really cool way to be a kid - especially when your early childhood was spent in the Meditteranean, where who don't find lots of American style Christmas trees, so we had aluminum.

[Rubi Waters]

We have always had fake trees. (My Dad is a fireman so real trees=fires).
Now that I'm on my own I still have a fake tree because now sadly enough I'm allergic to the real ones. :wah: We have the kind that already has the lights in it so all we have to do it open the thing up like an umbrella and finish decorating.
no it's not up yet, hopefully by next weekend it will be :)

I can tell about going to the store to pick out the fake tree but it severly pales to the wonderful outdoor, snowfilled scenes.

[Old Witch]

Artificial......cause I'm allergic and I bought a really good one a few years ago....

[MzNeko]

My family used to do real trees - there was a time when any of us would have sneered at the very thought of an artificial one... but then my parents gradually developed an allergy to the real deal and it got worse every year. For a while they got flocked trees, the flocking seemed to block some of the allergens (not a bad idea for someone who's only mildly allergic), but while it helped for a little bit, it still got worse and worse each time.

So, my folks broke down and got a very nice artificial tree. It's lasted for well over ten years now and it's only just starting to get a little worn in places. We discovered some of the advantages of an artificial tree:
1) You always know what you're dealing with - no "holes" or odd spots where an ornament just won't hang right.
2) Reduced fire risk.
3) No needles all over the carpet.
4) Decorating it is more comfortable - those pine needles used to scratch my arms and make them itch (maybe I'm mildly allergic, too...).
5) No spiders/other crawly things residing in tree to contend with (we live in the Los Angeles area - there IS no dormant season for bugs!).
6) No dirty trees. This may be a problem unique to the L.A. area - the air is so darned dirty that if the tree was grown locally, you pretty much have to hose off your tree in the yard before you bring it into the house! I have seen some serious grunge come off the trees.
7) No lost ornaments. My folks have a LOT of ornaments. Every year somehow one gets missed when the time comes to put everything away. Most Christmases when my dad sets up the tree, he ends up discovering an ornament still hanging on it. On a real tree that ends up discarded, that ornament is gone forever.

Now in my own home, I have a "cheap and cheerful" little three-foot artificial tree that I've been very glad for - most years my husband and I just haven't been able to afford a real tree (another advantage - I don't know about anywhere else, but here real trees are expensive). Also, we live in a very small apartment - there isn't really room for a full-size tree of either kind.

My little tree came from a store I used to work in - it was part of our window display at Christmas. When the store closed, it needed a home - how convenient! :p It's not the best quality, in fact it's pretty cheesy looking, but I've found that if you cover it with enough ornaments, it looks pretty good! :D

I'm hoping that some day we can afford to get either a real tree or a really nice artificial one (my husband likes real ones better). Maybe we can even get a bigger place so we can have a bigger tree - as it is, only about half of our ornaments can fit on ours (we've got a lot).

[Amethyst Rose]

We've always had a real tree, when I was growing up. Now that my sister and I are out of the house, my mom keeps threatening to get a fake one, so she doesn't have to deal with all the pine needles that get tracked through the house, but I'm not sure she'll ever do that, mostly because she loves the smell of a real tree.

We have a family tradition of going out to a friend's property and tromping through the snow to find the perfect tree for us to chop down....good memories.

A couple of years it's been way to cold to go out and get a tree so we've had to buy them, but we've always found that the ones at the lot are way to expensive, and plain old puny -- not worth the money.

What do we do with the tree after? Well, we don't have a fire place, so it gets recycled.... in our town, if you leave your tree on the side of the road, the recycling truck comes and picks it up, and they get turned in to wood chips, I believe.

I have to say that we've never lost an ornament, although I'm quite surprised. One of the ornaments we have are small different colored mirrors, and they're really hard to spot.

As far as I know (I'm not at home yet -- one more week!!) the tree isn't up yet....that's usually done around the 21st, and it stays up until New Years day. (When everyone but Mom all of a sudden finds something to do away from the house, so they don't have to help take it down. :))

[Flaire-FireStar]

1. Which do you prefer....real or artificle?

It's a tough choice... Sometimes I'd rather have an artificial tree, so I wouldn't have to have one of the real ones cut down and dying in the house (getting needles all over the place) for a month.. But then I think... hey, why not get a real tree - one in a pot or something that can be planted after.... One that will still be live...

So really, for me, it doesn't matter. I'd like to use one of the houseplants - or Bruce the Spruce - but not likely we will. ;)

2. What ever your prefrence....what do you use?

Real, dying. The parental units like the scent of the real trees..so we use those.. However, until I was I think about 10- or so- we had this beautiful artificial one. They got rid of it because it was old, and we've been using real ones ever since.

3. If you use a real tree, what do you do with it after the season?

Throw it out in the front yard for the cats to use as a scratching post and/or a bird feeder until the truck comes around and takes it to the dump. :rolleyes: Certainly a waste!

Where I used to live, everyone that had real trees brought them to this open field and piled them up. From there, they made this huge bonfire out of them. It was a real community event, and I liked going to that....

4. Is yours up yet?

Nope...Not yet. They are on sale - Pa's been working all this week though, so we haven't gotten around to getting one...yet. Probably next week we'll have it up though. Ma doesn't like having the needles all through the house.. Besides that, it'll be Spook's first encounter with a tree, so she'll definitely be curious - and probably climbing the darn thing. 8O

[Pan]

1. Which do you prefer....real or artificle?
I prefer real. I just love the smell, the feel, the.. atmosphere that real trees give. I just love them.


2. What ever your prefrence....what do you use?
I don't have a tree... I can't afford a real one, nor a fake one. My mom is gonna lend me her mini-fake tree.. but it's not the same because I have to give it back..


3. If you use a real tree, what do you do with it after the season?

Don't use a real one. But when we did.. we just.. put it out for the trash men to take it away. It's been YEARS since we've had a real tree due to cats. :(

[Blu Heather]

We have a fake one and it's been in the family ever since my dad and uncles were young. But it's too late to ask my grandma how old the tree is...but It's got to be older than me so 20+ years. It's in great condition too :D

Our tree is up, the tradition is that it goes up the week after thanksgiving. And there are some presents under it already too...but none for me :rolleyes:

I don't like real trees because I think they are wasteful, unless you have a small potted tree. They smell fantabulous though.

[Ryhla]

When I lived on my own, I put up an artificial one. My aunt gave it to me when she closed her doll shop. It is a 4 ft tree she used one season. I still have the tree, but it's somewhere in storage in my mom's garage (along with a lot of other stuff). This year, my room mate would like to get a nice looking artificial tree or a live tree to plant after the season. She's leaning toward the live tree at the moment. I myself agree with her.

[st0rm]

Always had a real tree, the plastic ones dont come with that great smell ;)

[MzNeko]

Yeah, the scent of a real tree is really great. My folks missed it after they switched to a fake tree due to their allergies. So my mom got a jar of pine-scented stuff to leave open around the house. Unfortunately, shortly after opening the jar, she started having a reaction to it. Apparently she's even allergic to pine-scented things!

...sigh...

My parents' tree is up already, it's just waiting for me to decorate it. My folks really can't do all the bending and reaching anymore. It'll be an all-day project. They have a LOT of ornaments, some of them older than me!

My own tree isn't up yet. First we have to get the house cleaned up. ...sigh...
I HATE housework! :mad:

[Epona44]

That is each year.

When I was growing up my mother always decorated the tree using glass ornaments she add to every year, replacing the silver icicles as they got worn out. Because my mother hates to cut trees, we always had artificial ones, however, we would go into the wood and bring back white pine, spruce, and hemlock branches to lay at the base of the tree or create wreaths and sprays. "For the smell," she said.

We ocasionally bought live potted trees, but there's only so many trees you can plant on your property.

When I started doing trees myself, I bought an artificial one, and would bring in boughs.

But I've always had cats and they love the ornaments, and the icicles, and so, one year I carefully took a string of lights and tacked them in a tree shape on the ceiling and hung the boughs. It was interesting, but not something I wanted to do every year.

Cats have shaped my holiday, and I guess its one of accomodations you make when you choose to keep animals.

I collected ornaments over the years, and I've bought my children an ornament every year of their lives so that when they celebrate their first solstice, they'll have a good start for their tree.

Today I live with an Englishman and three busy cats, so we "deck the halls with boughs of holly" and other evergreens, curling ribbons, colored lights, and candles.

And then there's the food.

[Lavender]

Real. It has to be real. When we lived up in Squamish, we used to go up the mountain & cut our tree. The whole neighbourhood would bundle up and head up to Brahm Ridge, under the power lines. We would pack hotdogs and hot chocolates & bring our sleds. The kids would have a great time. It wasn't just about getting the trees. The trees under the powerlines were ok to cut as they would have to clear them out every spring.

The past couple of years have been harder for us to get up to the mountain but we still make an effort. We got our tree today. Just finished putting it up & got all the lights on tonight. The house is starting to smell like nice and piney. :D

Every year, since my hubby and I have been together, we buy or make one special ornament to commenorate something special in our year. This year's ornament is a crystal Mickey Mouse wizard that we bought at Disneyland.

[Emaleth]

We've always had real trees. My dad has a good way not to let them lose needles: the tree is put in a big pot and held with stones, so that it won't collapse, but there is enough space between the stones to pour water, and we water it everyday. This way it doesn't lose needles, sometimes it even starts growing!

In my family there is a custom that the tree is decorated on Christmas Eve, which is a more important day than Christmas Day in Polish tradition. The tree then stands decorated until the Twelfth Night.

After the season, unfortunately, the tree has to be thrown away
:( . We once tried to plant it, but it had no roots and died quickly.

Blessed Be

[Saphra]

We used to keep real trees, that when they were dried up, were put down in the woods and used as mulch. This year tho, cuz my cat climbed the tree last year, and one of our dogs is allergic to real ones we have an artificial one that looks pretty real...... (We still can't have ornaments down below the bottom half cuz our dogs and cat steal them off and chew them up!!!)
We havn't put it up yet, probably this weekend or something.

[Sowelu]

Here's my tree. Nuthin' special....but it's kinda cute, and yes...it's artificial;) :D

[Old Witch]

Very pretty, Jade.:D

[Élistariel]

first off, how do you tell if you're allergic to your tree? I have a miniature one, it's barely a foot tall, and I'm going through kleenex after kleenex. SNIIIIIF. I just got it from Target a few hours ago, I might go by the dollar store to see if they have any teeny ornaments. I don't remember my first trees. My grandparents have an artificial. It still has the colored lights that I just HAD to have when I was like, 12. The lights on the top part of the tree are burnt out. Yeah, they don't take it down. Too much trouble, and it's in a room they hardly use, they just throw a bag over it. So, they have a tree up all year long. I think my parents had one of those fake silver ones once. I'm not sure what kind of tree I have now, all the tag said was 3" Euro Tree. It's about 8" tall, I just measured it.

[Witchy Cowgirl]

Well, we cut ours and brought it into the house yesterday. My youngest was on the verge of spastic fits cause we didn't decorate it untill today....waiting for the branches to fall.
We decoarted it, the youngest and I....colored lights, beads, and hay string. Yes, hay string, a few years ago we lived in a big ole house and didn't have much money, but had a huge tree. We really didn't have enough ornaments to make it look good so I went to the barn grabbed some hay string and braided it. It actaully looks good on our tree cause our ornaments are "Cowboy Clauses", boots, saddles, horses, hot pepper ornaments and of course the normal things, the red balls, the brass ornaments with the names, Hallmark ornaments, etc. The topper on our tree is a Cowgirl Angel. She is dressed in white with a vest made out of a red bandanna, a belt made of hay string and she wears a red hat. She's one of my favorite things on my tree. My mama-in-law made her for me. My favorite ornaments are collectables from Bryer Horses. Mama gives them to me every year.

What are your favorite things on your tree?

[Flaire-FireStar]

We're getting ours on Wed. :bigredgri

Ma finally caved and we're getting a fake one (how happy am I about that? :lol: )

My favorite item on the tree? It used to be our old star that sat on the top, but it broke, and the one we have now is ugly. :( So...With that said, I'd have to say the lights. They're so twinkly and bright and... Well.... Warm, I suppose. :) They just grab my attention more than any other thing on the tree. My favorite ornament, however is a blue ceramic ball that I made when I was in grade 2. It's gorgeous. :)

[Élistariel]

my 8" deal is a cedar. I tried hanging one of my earrings on it, to see if ornaments would hold, but the 'branches' are too weak, so I have 2 red and one clear/white bracelets on it. I also have some of those irdescent vase/fish tank rocks I got at the dollar store. Not much, but I live in an apt, and I'll be going to my grandparents, so a big tree is out of the question.

[shnen]

can't have a tree... I always wanted a real one, always had a fake one...

now, I can't have one because the dog will pee on it, and the cat will climb it... thats just asking for some disaster! :D

[Witchy Cowgirl]

Shnen, what about a small one on a table. That will take care of the dog problem.
I like those fiber-obtic ones and if I had a bigger house we'd have one of those somewhere. You wouldn't have to put decorations on one of those so maybe the cat wouldn't be AS interested.
I know it's not real but..........

[shnen]

Originally posted by Witchy Cowgirl
Shnen, what about a small one on a table. That will take care of the dog problem.
I like those fiber-obtic ones and if I had a bigger house we'd have one of those somewhere. You wouldn't have to put decorations on one of those so maybe the cat wouldn't be AS interested.
I know it's not real but..........

no tree is safe, the cat will still get it.. ;)
hmmm... maybe.... thanks for the thought :)