When was the last year you had a real tree?

Probably 30 years ago. They smelled good, but were a bit messy, with the small pine needles always falling off onto the carpet. I bought a nice artificial tree, and we used it for several years. Over the past 10 years, or so, we don't even bother putting it up, because we now have Christmas at one of the daughters or granddaughters houses.
 
Early 90s. We did Christmas at the place we just bought upstate which would become our home and I wanted a real tree, we always had artificial.
My kids found fault with everything about it,crooked,messy, smelly(?)
Those needles hung around for a very long time afterwards, been artificial since!šŸŽ„
 
When we moved here 15 years ago. Not enough room.

I was looking at the grocery stores at the small potted trees designed for your table top. Didnā€™t give in.
 
The people that lived across the street from me where I grew up had a real tree. They set it up on Christmas eve and by Christmas afternoon it was out on the curb. That mom was a neat freak and she didn't want "that filthy thing" in the house any longer than for her kids to open their presents.

The Christmas tree is a German tradition, allegedly started by Martin Luther. Italian and Polish people have a creche as the holiday centerpiece.
 
First year I was married 1981. We went out in three feet of snow to get a tree. We lived in a trailer. Very unsafe. Had a cat that crunched some of the lights with tinsel hanging down. Could have died in a fire. Damn cat.
 
We've never had an artificial tree. While the kids were still at home, the expedition to cut a tree was an annual ritual, except ...

During our first year living in Alaska we were told not to cut a tree locally - "They're frozen and will drop their needles very quickly" (For some thoroughly inexplicable reason we actually believed that!?! :rolleyes:) So we bought an overpriced tree imported from Washington state at a commercial lot in town and naturally within a week it was shedding needles like crazy. The following year we simply walked into the woods and cut the perfect tree. When we took it down three weeks later, it still had all of its needles and had new growth at the end of each branch!

Initially our "used" trees would be put on the curb where the town would pick them up, put them through a chipper, and make the chips available to whoever wanted them. In later years, they were placed at the edge of our yard to provide shelter for wildlife. The following summer they would become part of one of our backyard campfires.

Since the kids have grown and moved away, we've taken to "Charlie Brown" trees . . . sparse three foot white pines decorated with small glass ornaments that sit on a countertop or coffee table. Our woods are full of them. No muss, no fuss, and they're easy to dispose of.
 

When was the last year you had a real tree?​


Well, gotta say, the last five years we had quite a few.....and they were pretty real

our back yard in winter.jpg

This year, in town, we got an ornament from my Wyoming bud


Immediately hung it on the 'tree'

ornament.jpg
 
84 or 85 šŸ¤”

1608039448505.jpeg

That year I was working a tremendous amount of overtime and did not take the tree down until St. Patrick's day weekend. I remember asking a young man down the hall to help me with it. I went to the kitchen to get a trash bag and broom when I came back to the living room the window in my third-floor apartment was open and the tree was gone! šŸ˜²

These days Christmas spends most of the year in a small cardboard box on a shelf in the closet. I have a tiny ceramic tree from the 70s, a nativity scene, and a few tabletop decorations that I put out.

My city has special collection days to pick live undecorated trees off of the curb. The trees are shredded and composted with other yard waste. The mulch is made available to city residents free of charge in the spring each year.
 
This is been the case for me. Last was in Kansas, Overland Park.
I have this urge to have a small skinny tree or wire 5 foot one just for ornaments.
Havent yet due to by the time it arrived xmas would be over and no one to share it with....this happens the past 3 years.
A desire to celebrate something...
 

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