Tree...real or artifical???

Although I love the smell and the look of a real tree we now have an artifical one. After a house fire a few years back I just don't feel real safe. I really do miss that smell of pine in the house. The sprays I have tried are just not the same. Whats your pleasure?
Meems

We have an artificial. Its easier these days but when the five kids were home we always went out and cut a real tree. It was so much fun for everyone and epitomizes the true spirit of the Christmas season. I long for those never to be again days somtimes but I rejoice in knowing that the "kids" are all grown adults with lives and careers of their own and so far, all enjoy the blessings of good health and happiness.

I prefer the smell of a real tree, but we have a artifical one :( much cheaper on the pocketbook!
You're right about the smell thing, it just isn't the same.

this is the last year I will have a plastic one. I miss the real thing.
but I have no space for a big one yet.

but it is still pretty.

Carmen

I much prefer a real tree, but I can't carry one, so we have an artificial one :(

Have you thought about cutting a few branches and putting the cut stems in a vase of water? The smell will be there, and in water there is no fire danger. That is one way I have gotten (a little) real pine smell.

That is a good idea! I had even thought of cutting limbs and tieing them up to look like a bundle of fire wood, maybe even a red bow or ribbon to fancy it up a bit! I think I am going to try that tomorrow. Wont hurt to try huh?

my FIL used to thin out christmas trees and he brought home little crooket one that mostly had no branches on one side, so he drilled holes in the empty places and filled the holes with fresh branches that he found. the tree always turned out beautiful my DH sais.

Carmen

I am allergic to most of the natural trees, or actually to some little critters that live on the branches. But I can get away with having the needles in the house. So I crush some, tie them up in small pouches real tight and then wire them inside the covering of the central heating vents. When the heat comes on, the scent is distributed through the house. I also found that I can simmer some of the needles in the little potpourri appliances for a nice aroma in a small area, and shredded bits of the woody parts tucked into odd spots help to add a bit of natural smell. The more you bruise the various parts, the better they smell.

Aimee and lupine, good ideas! I am going to try both....
Thanks. Kikisdad weren't those days the very BEST!
Meems

The funny thing here is the way I recall getting a tree, as a country kid, and how it all evolved into the present. Bought live trees weren't available for us until I was almost grown. So the perfectly shaped artificial ones, in pastels and flocked, looked so luxurious to me. When a few friends bought trees at a lot, I thought that was absolutely the silliest thing I ever heard of. Who would buy a tree, when you could cut one free in any pasture or along any road??? But then the exotic ones began to appear, those full, dense Scotch pines and others we Southerners had never seen. I began to long for a "bought" tree instead of the pines we had always used. Time passed, as Andy Griffith says, and eventually I was living in a city away from my native pastures, with no place to cut a free tree. I bought like everyone else, but my kids wanted one of those ugly aluminum ones, with the revolving colored lights to shine on it. I just couldn't bear that ugly thing, so I put up a live tree from somewhere up north, until a friend with a factory gave us an artificial one that looked almost real. We wore it out, but it took almost a dozen years, and the "branches" were rusted by the time I tossed it out. With only one urchin left at home, I stopped the tree madness, and have rarely had one in the past few years. Last year, forced to gather at the Four Seasons for Christmas, I plopped a brass tree with glass Santas onto the lamp table. This year, Granddarling wants to know if I will once again put up my pretty tree, so I am trying to get the legs to cooperate long enough to clear a space on the snack bar for this weird version of a Christmas tree.

Gosh, I wish I could share boughs or trees with all of you. We had sales for our youngest daughter's school fundraiser and there will be some that will go to waste. We grow Christmas trees here on our farm, I saw trees this year sell for $3, these were the Douglas firs that were sheared. Merry Christmas to you all.

Lenjo, too bad there isn't a pond or lake near by where you could throw the left over trees in. They make good breeding area's for the fish!

Always a real tree

We used to have real ones...then I realized they were always so wide and in that our home is not a big one..we had one made in the US...the customs officer, the yr I purchased it..said to me and my girlfriend.."You got to be kidding, bringing back this art. tree, when you come from the land of forests!!! Anyhow it is a shab-cic-, Victorian, nice and trim and easy...I still miss the smell of real fir so lupine, I do the same as you do!!!! With boughs and all in a big fish-bowl Merry Ho Ho to all of you......Elaine

Real.. And this year's tree is a blue spruce that we'll replant.

Live plus 3 artificial ones and a small one without lights in the bathroom on the cats placemat!

What a purr-fect present for the little pussy :D