I’ve heard a lot of people say that having a fake Christmas tree isn’t very “holiday friendly”, but after my family’s Christmas tree disaster this year, I can see both sides of the great debate.
Let me give you a quick backstory on my family’s tradition and why I loved having a real tree. As a holiday tradition, my family and I would go out the day after Thanksgiving to get our tree. At first, we tried a few different places for a couple of years until we found the perfect place to cut our trees down. It’s about 30 minutes away from our house, so we’d make a whole day of it, spending time listening to Christmas music during the car ride. At this location, there was a little house filled with Christmas decorations, a food stand and a place to take pictures with Santa. We’d ride on buses down to the tree farm and spend awhile picking out the perfect tree. My dad would saw the bottom, and my brother and I would yell “TIMBERRR” as it fell.
The memories and traditions were my favorite part of having a real tree, but there were a lot of other little things that made having a real tree in the house special. For example, the smell of tree would always fill the room. It was like a natural air freshener. Also the look and feel of having a real tree really puts you in the holiday spirit. Hanging heavier ornaments on it was always fun because you have to pick the perfect branch. Overall, having a real tree truly does put you in the Christmas spirit but there are some perks of having a fake tree that are impossible to overlook.
This year, as my family was halfway done with decorating our real Christmas tree. I was about to hang up two more ornaments until the tree started moving, and I watched as it slowly fell over, collapsing on some of our favorite ornaments. It was in that moment when my dad exclaimed “Well, this is a sign to finally buy a fake tree.” I couldn’t agree more.
Having a fake tree can be looked at as less stressful than getting a real one. For example, you know that this tree will not fall over because it will stand perfectly wherever you put it. It eases the hassle of having to go out and search for the best tree with the perfect shape, because it already looks amazing. You also just have to pull it out of your basement once a year, which also means your saving money every year by reusing the same tree. There’s no allergens in a fake tree either, so if you’re my mom, you won’t need to take more allergy medicine in the dead of winter.
What I’ve learned is that though having a real tree is more special because of the traditions that follow it, you still get the same use of having a fake tree during the holidays. So if you were to ask me if I was team fake or real tree, I think for my parents sake I would say fake. Because I know they will never go out and buy a real tree again.