I’ve had artificial pretty much my whole life.

The last two were both hand me down trees, and in turn I handed down the tree I had.

I bought an artificial one second-hand which felt like the most sustainable option - not cutting a tree down every year and not paying for virgin plastic either. Charity shops here are usually filled with pretty nice ones since a lot of people seem to replace their plastic trees far more frequently than they should.

We get a real one from our neighbor, he does yardwork & sod most of the year but at Christmas he gets some trees to sell from some guy he knows in N Carolina and they are always amazing all of them. Yes it costs a lot, we have a large family who come for Christmas and it’s nice, I categorize the expense as entertaining.

When I was poor, I would just make a “tree” each year out of something. One year the coat rack, one year on the wall in construction paper, one year I found a inflatable one like a beach ball, one year my ex cut the top off a bush & hedged it into a cone - that went on for almost 20 years, always something different. My kids didn’t mind at all, nobody ever said “you need a tree” only “cool”. You don’t need a tree. Don’t feel obligated at all.

At work I have a wee artificial one.

Artificial. Real trees are a colossal pain in the ass.

Neither

No

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Have always had artificial. My parents still use the same tree they used when I was a kid. When my wife and I bought our own place we invested in a good quality artificial and I expect it to last just as long.

Real trees are a nice idea but I’ve seen far too many horror stories about them causing fires, and even if they don’t go up in flames they still drop needles and insects everywhere. Why take the risk?

My family has always done artificial. We don’t have the tree we had when In was a child, which was a big tree that took up a good portion of the living room. We had a lot of light strings and a lot of ornaments. The base had a thing that allowed it to slowly spin and it was amazing, after it was up and decorated.

Now we have a small artificial tree that is a lot newer and not anywhere near as impressive and maybe a quarter or less of the size. It’s still good because it brings out some holiday spirit.

We have a cat tree we use. So artificial.

Never bothered with putting a tree up, but I’ve always kinda wanted to steal this idea:

Real, but I keep it in a pot and it goes outside the rest of the year. It’s about 3.5’ tall at the moment and gets a little bigger each year. I’ve had it for 4 years now

When I can, I get a real tree. After Christmas, I trim all the leaves and branches off the trunk and put those in the municipal compost bin. I then put the trunk in storage and let it dry out for a year or two. Once dry, I’ll carve them into things like walking sticks, wizard staffs, etc.

My family bought a miniature real one two years ago so we’ll probably keep using it. It’s a bit of a hassle to water and take care of throughout the year, but I like it, the water is probably still cheaper than buying a whole new tree, real or artificial. It looks cute and is (obviously) easy to decorate.

Artificial. While it was a ton of plastic I can’t get over cutting down a tree every year. Seems wasteful to me. My artificial is exactly the same as it was 10 years ago and I have no need to replace it.