To think natural Christmas trees are rubbish

[Grindelwaldswand]

Got our first real Christmas tree yesterday and it is useless its 6ft but has massive gaps in between the branches and it can't even hold a bauble on the tip of the branch without falling to the floor i had visions of an amazing tree that would fill the hluse with the smell of pine needles but its scentless. definitely getting a fake tree next year.

How have you ended up with a scentless tree? My whole flat smells like pine needles. It was making my eyes water yesterday. Which kind have you got?

Ah, real trees are lovely, but you have to know how to pick the good ones from the duffers.

Never get one that's already wrapped up. It needs at least two of you to stalk round it muttering incomprehensibly about branch placement and rotation, and then stand and ping the branches, then repeat ad nauseam, then start having a hissed argument with one another because that person there has just picked up one that might have been good and why were they not quicker in grabbing it and so on until you eventually buy the first one you looked at.

Then you get it wrapped and the whole time you're stood there you start seeing all the other excellent trees but too late now cos you've picked yours.

And then you can't fit it in the car. And then you get home and it's too wide and there definitely is a gap there that you have to stuff with tinsel/hide against the wall.

It's a thing of Christmas joy.

YABVVU. Real trees are the best.

No I have to agree.. fake trees are better. You know what you are getting. Evenly distributed beauty! Plus better for t

.. the environment.

YABU. We have our first real tree and it's beautiful, and smells incredible.

Fake trees are not better for the environment! You'd have to use it for 10 years to match the carbon footprint of 10 real trees that end up in landfill, and longer if you recycle real trees. And being plastic, they will not degrade.

What outdamnedwind said. That made me snort as it's exactly what I did on Sunday!

See i made the mistake of just ordering one over the phone to be delivered ready wrapped learned my lesson that way. And im not sure think its a Norwegian it doesn't shed pine needles at all according to the advertisement

I'm with you OP. Fake ones all the way. Lovely and bushy and generally symmetrical. I also get really sad to see all the real ones dumped in the road after Christmas

I like the wonky beauty of a real tree. We have one at work every year and I love it as we don't have room at home so always have a slim fake one. Our work one this year doesn't smell either. Very odd.

YANBU. I like fake trees because 1. i'm cheap and 2. no needles drop

See I hate the fake, 'perfection' of artificial trees and would much rather have an imperfect real tree. I think it comes down to what you're brought up with though and what equates to Christmas for you - if I was used to symmetrical trees I can see how a natural one could look wrong.

I think ive got a duffer, I'll go to an actual tree farm and pick one next year i wanted my house to reek of pine needles goddammit, This tree isn't going to landfill either its getting chopped up for a friend's wood burner

Dh says real trees are a fire hazard* so we've always had plastic; usually second hand because that's how we get most things. I can't be bothered with maintenance of a real tree, anyway.

*He watched a video during a work training and the tree went up like so much so-called kindling. He was horrified.

Sap filled, not so-called.

Always had an expensive fake tree growing up, its still the exact same tree at my mums house 15 years later and it still smells like Christmas when you open the box so to me Christmas is a big bushy fake tree with no gaps

Ours has about 10 pints of water in the base to keep it hydrated so no chance of it catching fire

With regards to the baubles get some wire hooks for xmas decorations (are green so blend in) -and place the decorations further back on the branches.

Ours is absolutely beautiful, smells divine.
I don't 'get' artificial Christmas trees. Why would you stick a plastic tree in the corner of your room? What's the point? And trees aren't supposed to be symmetrical!
And artificial trees most certainly aren't better for the environment, unless you never buy a new one!

But yeah, what Sandsnake says. I think it's what you're brought up with. I didn't know artificial Christmas trees existed until I was about 8 and a friend had one. I couldn't understand why theirs was so strange looking!

I love real trees. But we haven't had one that smelled nice for years. We have our first fake tree but it has wax scented things that smell of pine... much to my horror... more than any tree! I thought I hated fake trees. But we have real ones outside the front and in the back garden.

My mum's old tree actually is environmentally friendly in a way because its saved about 15 tree's from been cut down. I don't get people who buy fake tree after fake tree each year though and then take them to landfill as if its a real tree even the cheapo £15 ones last at least 2 years

But...but...the plasticky, perfectly triangular symmetry of a fake tree isn't as appealing surely? It looks what it is...fake. A real tree looks like a tree, because it is. Gaps and irregularities and all.

We ended up at a couple of different places this year because the farm we normally go to they were all lopsided and gappy