Talk to me about christmas trees - real or fake?

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We have a fake christmas tree that is about 15 years old and was a cheap one from Woolworths. We got it when we were dirt poor and it is a really cheap and nasty one. Most of our decorations are ones that I don't really like much but as they were sold somewhere I worked they were missed off a stocktake bought with staff discount.

This year is the first time in our married life that we are going to spend christmas at home, so we are going to have a tree.

Should we get a real one? How much do they cost? Could we plant a real one in the garden and bring it back in each year?
Who makes a good, but not stupid expensive, fake tree?
We don't have DC but we do have a cat!

I thin IKEA to real trees for around £15. We usually get ours locally and pay up to £30 for it. I love the smell and look of a real tree. Start to build up decorations slowly. You can also get beautiful paper decorations (Danish) that hang on your tree and you fill with chocolates etc. I love skandi tree decorations!

Real, real, real, real, real do you get my drift
I get mine off a local farm, much better and cheaper than the ones on the shops- prob £30 ish quid for 8ft- smells lovely.

I love real trees. We always had one when I was a child & fake ones just don't feel or smell the same.

I
have always got real but we get normand fir so there is little smell.

tempted to get smelly one this year but the brances always seem so thin and unable to hold weighty decs.

I have to say, I have been perusing the fake trees in homebase this year, particulary the snow covered one, we have a few nectar points saved up and they do give the classic perfect shape...

I do get the appeal of real trees, they smell lovely and we always had real ones growing up. However, we do use a fake one now.
Reasons include:
Cost - I bought mine just after Christmas one year, so it was down from £50 to £25. That's about the same cost as a real one, but will last many years and is not an added christmas expense every year
Shape - It is a perfect shape and height, and all the branches are in convenient places for decorations
Convenience - It is just up in the loft, so DH just brings it down every year at a time of my choosing, I don't have to make a special shopping trip for it in a small car every year (we live about ten miles away from the nearest town)
Also, ours is a prelit Christmas tree, which has been an absolute blessing and means that our young DC have not learnt as many swear words as they might otherwise have done

We bought a fake tree about 3 years ago (pre-lit) and if I spend a while fluffling the branches it looks ok. By the time it is embelished with extra lights and decorations, it's nice.

I used to buy a tree from a local garden centre. They'd net it and chop the end them taper it to fit our stand.
They got more ££ and sometimes the shape was irregular.

And though it held it's needles well there was always an element of needle drop , we watered it when we put it in the stand (it holds at least 3 pints) and kept it topped up.

And I don't like the smell of pine so I don't miss that.

I much prefer a real tree - we have a potted tree in the garden which we decorate. But IMO the cost and the after effects weren't worth it.

Yes I am thinking of cost, we would still need to top up about 50 quid on top of nectar points to buy fake but real would be 40 quid anyway, and yes its a huge saving though for many years after.

Real, it has to be real.

We get a non drop variety and it's around £50.

However, I love this one which is much nicer imo that the ones that look like spruces. I'm thinking I might get it for the kitchen.

I am Danish so grew up with a real tree every year. I had never seen a fake tree in someone's home until I moved to the UK. But for the past 10 or 12 years I have used a lovely big fake one just for the convenience. It's never felt quite right. There is something just so lovely about a real tree.

I am definitely having a real tree this year, and I can't wait

Definitely has to be real. We order ours from the send me a Christmas tree website. Usually spend £60 on a 7 foot Norway spruce but downsized to a 6 foot this year so it'll fit directly in the bay window so it was £50. They last the whole of December, granted it's starting to get bare by New year but I'm sick of it by then anyway . Needle drop isn't too bad. Last year I lost my mind went a bit silly and ordered an 8 foot tree, needle drop was AWFUL but with the usual 7 foots it's not too bad. I hoover the room every day anyway so not going out of my way to pick a few needles up with it.

Just couldn't get an artificial one, wouldn't feel right to me... We always had a fake one growing up and it felt very soulless. I think the fact my mum insisted it matched the decor didn't help though . I love the smell of a real tree too.

Get a real, pot grown tree. A bit more expensive but if you take good care of it you can keep it in your garden between Christmases and use it for several years running.

Ours is a potted living tree which stays in the garden all year, coming inside for the festive season. This will be it's fifth year.

I like the idea of a potted tree I can bring inside.

We have a good sized garden with about 10 trees in it already. One more will be fine.
How much do potted ones cost and where can I get them? Garden centres?

Yes I'm thinking of a potted tree too

Where's a good place to get them from?

we have always had a real one but this year I'm thinking of getting a good quality fake one. For a 7/8 foot tree it's costing us around £60 a time and they are so humungousat the base, and the trunk can be so wide, that DH spends hours hacking it up to fit in our stand and living room (narrow but with a high ceiling).

But £150 for a good fake one versus the £600 at least that we have spent on real ones... I'm very very tempted! Real ones are lovely though.

real trees these people are excellent.

I have to have real trees and every year spent a fortune (more than I spent on food ) then I discovered b&q sell off cut trees two days before Christmas for £1! Now it's tradition for us to spend Christmas eve decorating the tree and we all love it! Plus there's more money for me for Christmas lunch

There are some beautiful fake ones about. John Lewis has some very nice ones. I have had three different ones over the years but the one I've used recently is really very beautiful s fake trees go.

I always get real I marvel at having an actual real tree inside my house every year! feels like a privilege if you know what I mean, I used to buy from the garden centre but prices got silly so I go to good old B&Q now where an 8 foot costs about £35 and saying I have mine up from December 1st that's good value the odd needle drops but not many.

Real here most years.

If we're going to be away for Christmas though we have a fake one.

We are in the same position- fake tree bought as students finally got retired when we moved house in the summer.

I am going to spend some money (£200) probably on a good fake one that will hopefully do us for many, many years.

They have some good ones in Dobbies if you have a Dobbies near you.

We got our potted tree for approx £35 from our local independent garden centre but Dobbies will have them.

We always buy a real Nordman, DC's love coming to help choose it and bring it home. There's definitely something exra christmassy about a real tree. This year we're having both a real and a fake as we've moved to a house that warrants two trees :) I was lucky enough to get a lovely hand me down fake tree from my mum that cost a small fortune when she bought it.
A potted tree is a great way of having a real tree without the yearly expense.

It's also environmentally sound!

I grew up with a real tree every year and though I like the smell they are a mess and impossible to decorate nicely.

Now I have my own home, I've never had a real tree and never will. I got a tree from Tesco, it will have been 20 quid max and is 6ft. Decorations are cheap from Tesco and B&M but very beautiful.

If you get a potted tree do you re-pot it every so often, or does that depend on whether or not you want it to grow bigger? Will it sit quite happily in the same pot if one is so inclined?