Real or fake?

Evil_Olive

Real tree when we can afford it, artificial in the years we can't.
Not surprised at people thinking real trees are bare - DIY places and supermarkets seem to get away with selling some right old sh--.

We get ours from a little independent place that is a good plant nursery the rest of the year and ours have always been incredibly bushy all the way up. Last ages too with hardly any droppage (we put up on December 1st every year) Pay through the nose though - £50-80 depending on height hence why we don't have one every year. Worth every penny though - I don't think it's worth paying out at all for the cheaper, poorer quality ones, might as well do artificial and save up the money to have a good real one every few years.

Our artificial one came out of a skip at the back of a shopping centre one January - it was enormous, think it had been part of the centre's Xmas decorations and had only been used once.

This was about 20 years ago, it was white and you couldn't really get those in the shops back then so I was really chuffed with my 'unusual' tree. Had to remove four layers from the bottom though to fit it in the room - luckily, being a shop prop, it was made to be modular/resizeable - very sturdy too.

My living room has always been done up 1950s mid-century-modern style (bit of a vintage hoarding chick ) so a white artificial tree works really well. Collected lots of vintage/retro decs in bright 50s icecream colours over the years and I've never seen another tree like it once it's up & dec'd

LalaGomay

I LOVE real trees, but I feel guilty about *whispers* killing one every year, so we have a nice realistic artificial one now. It's just as exciting to put up and decorate, and it's reassuring to know that we're guaranteed a nice, tall, well shaped tree every year. (I used to get a bit stressed out that we'd leave it too late to buy the real one and be stuck with a small tree.)

And to solve the no pine-smell problem, we get a real pine wreath and have it on the coffee table with a candle in the centre. Looks and smells super Christmassy.