I never thought I would have a fake tree. We live literally minutes away from 4 or 5 different Christmas tree farms and could easily find a lovely live (until we chop it down) tree for a great price. In fact, cutting down a Christmas tree used to be one of the fun things we looked forward to doing as a family each year.
Then it happened.
I don't think it helped that that was the year we deviated from our strict Noble-Fir-Only rule and got some ugly thing called a Scotch Pine. I hated it.
Also, unknown to us, there was a very small crack in our Christmas Tree stand. "Boy, this tree sure drinks a lot of water," we thought the entire 4 weeks we watered it faithfully. Then on Christmas Eve I sat the boys in front of the tree for a picture and felt the wet carpet.
Christmas morning all the presents under the tree were damp.
The tree came down almost as soon as we had finished present opening. The next week a water damage restoration company came out and replaced the sub-floor and dried out and cleaned the carpet, making that year's tree the most expensive ugly one we'd ever had.
The following year we looked for a fake tree. I have to admit, I felt like a Christmas traitor. I'd often thought it was sacrilege that any Christian Oregonian would have a fake tree. It just didn't seem right in Christmas Tree country. God's Country!!
At the same time, that ugly, water leaking mess from the year before was still an open wound on my Christmas spirit. So we got the fake tree. Now after 4 years, I feel like the tree is part of the family. It goes up and down in a snap. The lights are already attached, there is no dripping sap, no colony of spiders waiting to migrate into every nook and cranny of my house, no watering schedule to keep to, no dropping needles to vacuum up. We don't have to spend an afternoon cutting it, strapping it to the top of the car and lugging it in the house and we don't have to pay the boy scouts to come and pick it up when everything is over.
The only drawback, of course, is the lack of fabulous pine scent. It's sad, but I can live with it.
So we decorated the tree last night. Actually, I let the kids do most of it. Which is why there is a heavy concentration of ornaments on the front, lower half of the tree. It looks very dorky. And I love it that way.
7 comments:
I've been trying to convince Ryan that we should get a fakey. I just think it would be so much easier, and I never thought I'd get to this point, but I am. I really like the red bead garland on your tree. I had some in my basket at Michael's on Saturday but then refrained. I'm tired of my pearls and gold beads. I love the red wooden ones. I'm also craving colored lights for some reason this year. They remind me of my childhood.
(That was me, Erika.)
Yes, i would have preferred colored lights on our fake tree, but this is the one we ended up with. I think the next fake tree we get will have colored lights.
Just light a pine scented candle and voila it's like having a real tree in your house :D
We have fake too and I grew up with real. Both have pros and cons
Almost there with you sister. Almost there with you!
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These pictures look great! How fun! We put up our fake tree last night. Not only is it a fake but it is also a hand-me-down tree. I can't figure out how to get all of the lights to come on (hmm, maybe that's why it was a hand-me-down).
I'd been going with my family to cut down a Christmas tree since I was 6 years old!!! But like you, I got tired of watering them, killing spiders, etc., not to mention the sore throat I had every December from the pesticides the growers spray on them! We bought a fakey about six years ago, and we're very happy...except when one light shorts out and we can't find which one it is!!! Great blog, as usual, Afton!
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