Talk to me about christmas trees - real or fake?

[Pipbin]

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!

Fake ones are lovely and have their place. You can get a real one this year, and krep your eyes open for a good value fake one - that's what we did. I thibwk it was £100 reduced to £35.

Every now and then I get a real tree but have the fake one to tide us over 'less important' Christmases.

This year I have a new baby due so fake will be much easier!

If we are travelling "down home", we spend a good few days there right over Christmas so the pretty cheap fake I bought that first year we had the house comes out. It's 5 feet, but loaded up, does the job pretty well. We also used it the year dd was 1 and just walking.

Any year we stay put in our own home, we buy a real tree and water it daily to minimise needle drop.

I have a combination of nice decorations gathered over the past 15 years of having "our" tree, some I have made myself, qute a few dd has made over the years(9 years old this christmas) and still a few of the original ones from that first tree. I have more of the originals in a bag that we bring with us going down home, as we rent a cottage at that time of year, so they can add a bit of festivity just on a couple of branches.

I do keep contemplating a good fake, but I can never see one I am satisfied with, and fluffing it up would take as much work as a real one.

ours is fake, we've got a tiny terrace house with a one room living/dining so it lives on the table and we eat off laps and knees over the period, lol.

Real trees are expensive, need watering, can drop needles, but smell and look lovely. Cost lots of ££££££

We went from artificial to real for a number of years, but we found that real trees were getting wider and wider and we struggled to find one which fitted the available space. For that reason we went back to an artificial tree. I still yearn for a real tree.

If I was you, I would go for a real tree this year and if you do want an artificial tree see if you can pick one up in the sales when they can often be found for half price.

Artificial trees vary so much in quality and price. On the whole I feel you tend to get what you pay for.

I was a very loyal fake tree fan until DH insisted we try a real tree one year. Haven't gone back since.

We buy a tree from a local seller for about £15 (at least 6 foot as we have high ceilings). We mooch about and pick one with evenly soread branches and not too wide. They're never symmetrical but I like that. When we eventually buy a house and have a proper garden I plan to buy a potted tree and just bring it in for Christmas.

If you buy one that will be discarded after Christmas, a tip to stem the needles dropping is to add a small amount of washing up liquid to the water.

With decorations, we had cheap nasty ones from when we first lived together and had no money, mixed with random hand-me-down ones from my parents. About 5 years ago we replaced most of them with ones we liked - mostly matching sets then a few odd 'nice' ones that cost more. Now I top them up every year with one or two that I like, and we've acquired a few special ones too (we had a December wedding and a bauble gift with our names & wedding date on, and we bought some from our honeymoon destination etc).

• evenly SPREAD branches!

It's purely down to personal preference. At different times in my life I've had fake or real trees, and I prefer fake.

What other colours are you putting on it MrsDeVere ? Please post a pic when its up!

5ft Fake. Bought for €12 in 2006. Our last €12. I made felt and feather decorations. I have retired the decs - they were beyond - but still have the tree. E cant't justify spending €50 every year on a tree rather than foos/days out.

I suppose real ones look better? I don't know anyone with a real tree, so can't compare.

Luminous pink sounds a riot! I have seen a royal blue one that tickled my fancy... a pity DH has eyes!

A fake tree is plastic on a stick.

Like fake flowers, it really does not count. Big part of my christmas budget is a 7 foot high real tree bought just 10 days before christmas. The whole house smells like Narnia. A real tree is vibrant, and in my book a huge part of christmas.

Where do you buy potted trees from please?

I saw some small potted trees in The Range today (about £15 IIRC)

I bought one about 5 years ago from Homebase and it has grown steadily but it won't grow huge because the tallest branch had been lopped .
We've repotted it twice .

We don't bring it inside though , it sits on the picnic table with solar lights
It would be FULL OF SPIDERS

Oh god, really??

Hmm yeah I think a spider-infested tree would probably ruin the whole effect.

Real cut tree for me!

every year i think oh we'll get an artificial one.

but the smell of a real one, so lovely it makes xmas xmas. we are lucky that we live a few miles from a place where we can go and cut one down.

I think I'll Hoover my tree before I bring it inside.

We always had a pretty realistic fake one as a kid so as an adult I have never minded a fake one. The only time I've seen a decorated real one in a house is through my job and I couldn't really see what the fuss was about. We now only have a very limited space for a tree and for the last few years we had one of those trees made from twigs, which I quite liked once it was all decorated. This year, though, I felt that the twig tree had had it's day and have just bought a fake slim tree with snow effect, it sounds naff, but I think it looks quite nice and will be quite pretty with the lights and decs on. It cost £30 and I expect it to last for a number of years.

I'm going back to my Danish roots this year with a proper traditional country Christmas and it just wouldn't look right with a fake one. It wouldn't be right with a fake one. It's a very nostalgic thing for me this year as it will be the first year that my much loved grandmother, who made Christmas for me when I was young, won't be here. So I'm going to do it right to remember her

holgerdanske- that is so lovely. Sorry for your loss, but so wonderful that you can carry on such a legacy in her name.

Look on One Regent Place for a smart fake one.

Ours is 7ft tall with 600 lights!!

Had to convince DH that cheaper in the long run than spending £50 on a real one each year.

I heard something about the bugs on a real one, there are thousands of them, so fake one from now on for us.

Never seen a bug onh a real tree. Grown in very cold Northern forests- not renowned for insect populations.
Bringing in a real tree brings in a fresh breeze from a forest. I grew up with plastic trees. I would rather have no tree than a plastic one.

For those who like plastic trees- would you be happy if your OH brought you a bunch of a dozen plastic red roses?

A tree is not a tree unless it is real.

We have a real tree every year usually spend around £40 on it at b&q and I absolutely love it. We are moving house around 20th December this year so I'm a bit worried there won't be any decent trees left by then

bigbluestars we cannot budget £50 every Christmas for a real tree, sorry about that.

I don't particularly 'like' my plastic tree, but between plastic tree and no tree, we'll have plastic.

I'd be delighted if my DH bought me plastic anything although not roses as they're fugly and naff what would you have me do, throw them in his face? Cry? Ltb?

My Christmas doesn't look a JL advert, more like Buddy the Elf visited

then I discovered b&q sell off cut trees two days before Christmas for £1!
Really! are there always a few left and are off cut trees, normal trees?