When I can be bothered (not often) I get a real one. The smell is amazing, it looks great and the imperfections and variations make it look much nicer. Oh, and the best bit? When I take it down I get to take it to the goat farm down the road - they go absolutely fucking nuts for fir trees.

fuck holidays id rather eat shit

Option 3: we don’t buy any trees.

Doesn’t feel like Christmas without the smell of a real tree. I go out back and cut a small one.

Real.

Pricey? I just go out in the woods and take one for free.

I hunt my own free range tree. It’s satisfying having a hand in is death. Feels good to take that chainsaw to it’s body, cut it down in the prime of life, strap it to my truck, let the wind whip through its slowly dying limbs. Drag it inside my house and hack parts off until I’m satisfied it fits. Stand it in my dining room and drop fresh water into a bucket with screws attached that is designed to prolong it’s eventual demise. Then after a couple days of letting it slowly warm, we gather as a family and decorate it’s festering body with glittering lights, shiny baubbles, and memories of years past. Before we then place gifts below it’s slowly dying limbs to exchange with each other on the day we celebrate the world breaking and entry champion for the past 1745 years. After that I wait a few days, rip the glitter off, and toss the remains outside, either in the trash to be buried and gone, or to the graveyard of the trees, where it can finish rotting with others of it’s kind.

It’s a lot of work, but oh so satisfying.

Fake.

The real ones are expensive, throwaway fire hazards.

After 3-4 years of throwing away real trees you’d easily have enough for a nice artificial tree that will last decades.

We have large floofy ragdoll cats, 14lb missiles of Christmas tree doom.

Thus, we have neither.

Real.

Cut it down at a tree farm that has a Santa workshop.

Fake

Artificial. Cost me an arm and a leg when I got it, but I’ve had it for so long it averages less than half the price of a real tree pre year. Plus, I don’t have to bother with finding a good tree, transporting it home, and then driving to dump it at the recycling centre.

I am surprised at how many artificial tree users there are. Way more than I expected.

I have mostly lived where I could just go get a real one from the woods if I wanted to, so I guess that gives me a bias. If I couldn’t have a real tree, I dont think I would want one at all.

I am not much into christmas, but the whole bringing a tree home with a connection to nature makes it worthwhile. Love the smell of a fresh tree too.

Never had issues with needles or bugs so I find that strange as well. I mean sure, the tree drops some needles at the end, but that is what the skirt is for. The few outside of that is just a single day of vacuuming that you would be doing anyways.

This year we bought a real one, but we’ve used artificial before. I’m pretty neutral on the whole thing; love real trees, but artificial trees at least don’t kill real trees (unless you count the likely toxic manufacturing process)

I live in Australia. Everyone here does fake trees.

Artificial for sure. That’s been the case since 2 years before kids were born.

I never had an artificial tree growing up. We always cut it ourselves, drilled it, fed it, decorated it and so on. I took my wife from the city to go cut one and it was a great experience. That said, the artificial one is so nice. It gets assembled and has lights included, so once you stack it, it turns on and is already lit. All you have to do is arrange ornaments.

Full disclosure, I HATE DECORATING A TREE. So for me, not having to put lights on is a huge win. Also it’s the right height every time, And stuff just works.