When I was a kid, it was ALWAYS real trees. My family was poor before my mom remarried, but we usually had a real tree anyways. After she married my stepfather, she had a lot of discretionary income, which she often spent at the local year-round Christmas decorating shop. She is the sort of person who was always on pre-purchase lists for the new, cool thing, like pre-programmed marquee-style lights with a control box, or a hangable programmed electronic system of real metal bells that you can put on the tree or use with garland. Each bell rang a specific tone, and were wired to actually play different Christmas songs. (I don’t know if that makes sense, but I mean that they weren’t a set of bells that played a recording of bells playing these songs – they had a control box that told them what order to play in, and they really played the songs themselves.)

The thing is, my stepfather was a paraplegic and I have never been very strong, so it was always up to my mom to get the tree into the house and into the stand and in place… and she’s a little allergic to pine, particularly the sap. When I was a teenager, in particular, we always had really huge real trees, lots of lights and gizmos, moving parts, you name it. An over-the-top old-timey Christmas tree. Our living room had a mirrored wall, so we always put the tree there. I did a lot of non-tree decorating, and I usually did most or all of the ornaments and garland.

After I got older, we started getting fake trees to make it a bit easier on my mom. When my stepfather passed away, we even scaled down the fake trees (we spent Xmas in hotels for a few years, because Disney World really is the happiest place on earth at Xmas, especially if you only live an hour or two away from it). We started trying tabletop trees.

Now there are two trees in the family, both pre-lit. One is huge and has realistic plastic needles, and was only used the year we bought it (I believe this tree is being given to me and my fiance). The other is cheaper and around 4 feet tall, cost about $40 at Target a few years ago, and is used on top of a big square coffee table. It’s the perfect size for an apartment. Before this, we had a fake tree that was much smaller, and had fiber-optic elements on its branches. It was pretty and fabulously kitschy, but it made a weird whining noise as it cycled through colors.

I think real trees are nice and probably environmentally friendly (though NOT CUTTING THEM DOWN is probably even more environmentally friendly!) – but fake trees are easier to deal with, hands down. So many aspects of a real tree are a pain in the butt, like trying to water it with packages around it. It’s hard to get lights on a real tree, and your hands and arms and clothes get sap on them, and you get pricked a lot unless you chose one of the softer varieties (which don’t hold ornaments as well). You HAVE to get them down by a specific date, both so that they don’t become a fire hazard or drop all their needles into the carpet, and (in some communities) so that they’ll actually be picked up by trash collection. I found that no matter how timely we were in getting the tree down, there were ALWAYS needles in the carpet, waiting for months to stab me when I was foolish enough to walk around in stocking feet. **I don’t miss any of these elements of having a real tree!!!**

The one great element of a real tree that a fake tree can never surpass is the scent. This adds greatly to the tree’s presence. I don’t know if you can pull off the over-the-top pseudo-Victorian tree situation that I remember from when I was 12 or 13 if you don’t have a real tree, because the scent of plastic in the air makes the whole thing depressingly inauthentic.

So – for sense memory and splendidness, a real tree. For a Christmas celebration that actually fits into my real life without stressing everyone out, a fake tree every time.