This is a huge tradition thing for me! If I don't visit the farm and poke myself in the eye with branches cutting the tree down, then use my favorite ornaments collected since I was little, it don't feel quite like REAL Christmas.

I'm going out of town again this year - so no Xmas tree for me.

I decided to buy a rosemary plant, shaped like a tree. My apartment is tiny, so I wanted something that would serve more than one purpose. After Christmas I can use it for cooking, and store it on my patio.

We use our wonderful fake evergreen tree we purchased a Stats (famous Christmas place in Pasadena, CA) about 10 years go. It's been a wonderful investment - I buy a wreath for the aroma necessary for the house to smell and "feel" like Christmas. I put an assortment of misc ornaments that I have collected over the years (most from my 1-year stint in Germany).

I guess for my husband and I, we fall in category # 2 - simplicity interiors. Funny thing is when we first bought the tree, he wanted to decorate it with as many colors as possible. However, I wanted a mixture of cream, gold, red, and white trimmings. We couldn't agree until I came to the conclusion of asking him what his fave color is and he said blue. Then he asked me what my favorite color is too, and I also said blue! So that's why we have a wide range array of blue and silver decorations on our Christmas tree. We add on pieces of ornaments every year. We both love our Christmas tree and we look forward in putting it up every year! We're putting ours up today! Yayyy!

Mostly traditional though I've never had room for any kind of tree over three feet since I can just clear off a surface for it - there's just not enough room to place a tall one.

The silver tree w/red balls on it is exactly like the Christmas tree we had up until I was probably in middle school. Then my mother decided we needed something more "realistic" looking, meaning a fake tree that looked real. The silver tree worked so well w/their Danish teak furniture; the green tree always stood out like a sore thumb. In my adult life, I've never had a Christmas tree. For the most part, I think they are ugly and make a huge mess, and I'm a minimalist who just can't be bothered with one. I've never missed it.

I am with NitaDC on this one. Fresh tree - we don't own a car so I feel better about this step - reaches all the way to the ceiling and we decorate with one of the sets of ornaments that my hubby and I have collected eversince young. Christmas is about nostalgia as well. Oh and we don't do any of that premature, can't wait till Christmas stuff, the tree goes up on Christmas eve and goes down on January 6th... I might not be very religious, but I do believe in traditions that have meaning and not in commercialism....

i alternate between a real tree and an artificial tree each year. here in louisiana, discarded christmas trees are used to help re-build our fast disappearing wetlands so i like to help out while also having an artificial tree.
i also alternate between two different styles of ornaments and decorations. i have a homemade and rustic theme with nutcrackers and wood ornaments that i use sometimes and i also have a more chic silver and blue theme that i use. i don't like having the same thing every year. i like to change it up so i can be excited about putting up all the trimmings!

We try to do vintage modern, with a vintage aluminum tree in silver and lots of vintage ornaments, all colours, shapes and sizes. We have some modern tabletop accessories from Ikea that dress up the credenza, etc... and some lovely brass star shaped candleholders from Denmark on the dining table and we're done.

I have a tall and a short fake tree. (Living where real trees were illegal for fire reasons most of my life, I learned to love my fakes!) I bury the things in ornaments -- lights and ornaments, no tinsel, no garland. My ornaments are a blend of gifts, mementos, and collections of stars, moravian stars, snowflakes, and (recently) peacocks. I favor turquoise, silver, and crystal, but no color is off limits. I go for glitz,and my trees dazzle! Up form the day after Thanksgiving until New Year's Day.

Picking out the real tree is a big part of the Christmas experience for me. As a kid, I was all about the multicolored lights, tinsel, pearls, bows, and every ornament known to man. Now I like to match my tree to match the decor of my living room, so I have white lights with turquoise and silver ornaments. I actually prefer my living room during Christmas season because it's just so pretty!

2 years ago we were really poor and couldn't afford a Christmas tree. I found some fallen branches in the yard of our apartment, painted them pale blue, stuck them in a vase and hung a few ornaments on them. The next year I had started up my business and things were slightly better financially so we bought a single spruce top for $5 and used that for a little tree. It was thin but kinda enduring like the Charley Brown tree. This year things are looking up, business is good, we're in a new home (duplex) and I'm looking forward to picking out a real full-sized Christmas tree. I feel like after all our hard work pulling ourselves out of a tough economic situation that we deserve it... and that I'll appreciate it more than any other Christmas tree I've ever had before!
-Laura

Always heading up my hill to cut down the tree I have been staring at all summer, only to change my mind, and decide on a different one, usually with some or all of the kids in tow. The extra branches are used as greens on the mantle, etc. We used to have an oddball collection of decorations, but recently lost them to an unfortunate accident in the box involving a bursting snowglobe. Since we celebrate several mid-winter traditions in our house due to various religious backgrounds, we decided to keep it simple. Lights, popcorn strands, lots of wreaths and candle wreaths. Every year now, the kids decide what will go up and what will wait until next year.

Have dwindled down from large traditional faux evergreen (allergies) with 400 ornaments to a possibilitree with my remaining favorite ornaments.

The husband and I have a fake silver tree that's out all year long. We have lots of ornaments that we rotate around for different times of the year (right now it has orange, yellow, red, and brown ornaments for fall). Here's an old photo (the green hat tree topper was for St. Patrick's Day). http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3662/3375776687_53980bcf57.jpg

As "Mid-C Frank" I do have a certain affinity for the aluminum things (and a while growing up a neighbor always had one in their "picture window" with the rotating color light thingey!). But we always have had a real tree, and I still do, picked at the grower whenever possible. Plan the same again this year. No themes or anything, just the ornaments that have accrued in the course of life.

I do a tree per room. Sure some are 5" pull out of the box and set on the counter type, but one per room. The living room gets the big daddy faux tree with as many ornaments as I can pile on. This is the one thing that I have collected over a lifetime that I have never scaled back on. Nearly every ornament is a memory especially those given to me by my Grandmother who is no longer with us. There are a few uglies that go on the back or stay in the box but I can't get rid of them. Some actually make me sigh or giggle as I unpack them.

A little 4-foot pink tree with lime green ornaments!

I prefer none inside. If possible decorate one outside a nice window.

I just love an all white christmas. I found a white 7 foot faux for only $19!!!!

We have a white tree, with white lights, and black and white ornaments. it looks really good with our mint green walls :)

Our family hasn't done a Christmas tree since I was in junior high. The first year was out of necessity -- my dad had a broken leg and couldn't haul a live tree in like we'd always done. We made do -- folded the tree skirt in half and put it on the fireplace hearth. Turns out, we none missed the tree! We've just used the tree skirt on hearths and coffee tables since.

I love a real tree - and decorated with ornaments that all mean something. No color scheme, just memories. I try to buy an ornament of some kind when ever my husband & I travel so we can add to the collection.

My only problem is - I can't find anything that I love enough to put on the top of the tree. We had a star growing up - but it too had meaning. (and still lives on my parents tree). So I am stumped there ever year.

I have to have a real tree (it's not winter w/out the pine smell). I get a little one about 3-4 ft tall and put it on a side table. Lots of ornaments, all glass and all ball shaped but different colors and white lights. I like the homey non over decorated out look which I of course achieve by carefully hanging the ornaments in just the right place to have an even distribution of color :)

I inherited my grandmother's fake Christmas tree, and I'll be decorating it with colored LED lights, white standard lights, and all the ornaments I can hang without risking my roommates' daughter eating them.
I have a collection of ornaments from a bunch of eras. If I were to name my "style," I'd call it "tchotchke kitsch." It's a collection of a lot of mass-produced ornaments, but somehow... it's still mine. And it still reminds me of my tree growing up, and my grandmother's tree, and my great-grandparents' tree.

I'm a traditionalist, too, as far as ornaments go. I have lots of ornaments from childhood on, and Santa leaves an ornament in our stockings each year.

Charlie Brown tree. Bare.

Tree #2 (Simplicity Interiors) inspired my 2009 Christmas tree.

I'm going to get a real tree since I have no space to store a fake one. I'll be using a mix of colorful glass balls, and homemade ornaments.

I've had a 12" fake tree since I was 10 years old, and used to put it on the coffee table with a few small ornaments. USED TO.

When one of my kitties got big enough to jump on furniture, he started snacking on the tree! Apparently synthetic flocking tastes good to him. He's a very weird cat and eats all kinds of non-food things. (Multiple vets have checked him out. They can't find anything wrong.)

So, the tree went on top of the TV cabinet instead.

Five years later, I've had to downsize quite a lot and there is nowhere to put the tree in my apartment where the cat can't reach it. I'm planning on moving around New Year's anyway, so no tree this year.

Traditional for me, with red and gold ornaments, a mix of pieces I collect year to year (just got a Chip "N" Dale ornament from Disneyland Paris which has made me uber-excited!) and ornaments from my childhood. No lights for me as I grew up with a Dad who was sure they would cause a fire, so now I have the same fear. And its always a real tree, the bigger the better.

This will be my first Christmas with my own tree too! I'm so excited! I really want to put some garden gnomes underneath it, and I already bought some Mexican tin stars to hang, as well as sundry ornaments from both my and my boyfriend's past :)

As a certified Christmas Nut, I have a tree in every room and every year I change the colors up. I start browsing when decoration start to appear in the stores and always see the latest colors and something new I can't live without. So, every year is different this year is Silver and Red and tiny white lights in the LR, Chocolate and Cream in the bedroom, in the bathroom it's ............., balcony, kitchen you get the picture.

I'm a Christmas and Winter Solstice nut so I love the real tree (although we don't like to sacrifice the tree so we usually get a norfolk pine) but the 2nd white tree is cool. For the first time we may go for a fake one because the real ones are a bit messy and anyway I have a black thumb.

Twenty-three years ago my kitten tried to climb the tree and pulled it over on top of her. It killed her. I've not had a tree since.

I always felt bad for the trees cut down for our pleasure when I was a kid, so I jumped on the excuse to get a fake one when my wife turned out to be allergic to the real ones (she always grew up with fake ones, so she didn't even know this till she did Christmas with my family and broke out hives). We have an adorable 3.5ft tall half tree, which mounts handily on the wall where it wont get knocked down, and doesn't take up all our space.

When my parents got married, the did so in December, and asked for Christmas ornaments for wedding gifts. So, the first Christmas after my wife and I got married, my family got us this little tree, and more ornaments than the poor thing can handle, and lights with colored water in them that bubbles! When my sister moved in with her boyfriend, they got the same thing. The resulting collection is a hodgepodge of inside jokes, handmade goodies, and sparkly things, bought or made with my wife and I specifically in mind. We have sparking fish, tiny neon ninjas, mecha...it's not remotely tasteful, color-coordinated, or put-together looking, but it just glows with love and good cheer, and I wouldn't have it any other way! On top is a sculpy angel my wife made for us.

Since we finally have an apartment that's large enough for a tree I will settle for nothing less than a Fraser Fir. The branching is perfect for ornaments of which I have boxes and boxes, all of which are glass and are German, Czech or Polish in origin.

I just bought my first artificial tree -- a 7.5 foot pre-lit white one -- and decorated it today with hot pink, turquoise, lime green and purple ornaments. The shinier the better. My living room is rather dark with dark floors and furniture, so the white tree is already adding tons of brightness and light to the room!

The white tree also reminds me of the heyday of Christmas at my grandparents with their white tree.

I love a real Christmas tree but I don't do one anymore. I have a 36" tall white tinsel tree that I love to death! It is awesome! I love hot pink, bright purple, lime green, red and turquoise ornaments!

How funny, I just read LSUgrad03's comment and we like the exact same thing!

I am pretty much a poor student, so I had to go with the cheapest things. But I think I manage to make some cute christmas tree with all that. The tree is a regular green artificial tree and the ornament are all black and silver. I really like the vertical ribbons :)

You can see some pictures on my blog (sorry, it's in french only though): http://laframbwaze.canalblog.com/

ande- can i visit your house for xmas one year?

We've collected a lot of ornaments over our 33 years together, and the tree each year "depends"...on whether we have new cats (this year), etc. So we have ornaments that are fragile (a collection of german glass santas) and other that are not so much (a collection of metal stars and Scandanavian straw ornaments) and choose depending. This year it is the unbreakables (a very active 8 month old kitten). But the tree thus far is always real and always done in white lights (much to the hubster's consternation--but he has adjusted).

My boyfriend is the Grinch when it comes to holiday cheer in general and decorations in particular. He won't go for a tree (At all. I know.) so I was able to compromise and am making a fairly giant wreath (based off this one: http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/12/diy-project-kristens-ruffly-felt-wreath.html but with a bicycle tire rim to shape it and pipe insulation to stick into) in colors that compliment our only tablecloth large enough to cover the thrifted table we need for the dinner party we decided we had our sh*t together enough to hold (we don't).
I have also managed to wrangle a simple white paper chain and Christmas lights into the deal.

Good grief.

Real tree, cut at the lot. Decorated with misc. ornaments collected and inherited. Some of the ornaments date back to the 1800's. Multi-colour lights. Tinsel, hung a single strand at a time just like my grandparents and mother did (And collected off the tree one at a time. There's even some of the old lead tinsel in the bundle of tinsel in the christmas box.). Goes up on Dec 20th, and comes down fairly early in January.

I'm very much of a traditionalist.

Wow! I'm shocked so many people rock the white tree. I've had one for the last 5 years and people always comment on it. I've never had a real tree in my entire life, so I wouldn't even know how that process works! We did manage to find a 7.5' silver tinsel (non-vintage) for cheap this year, so we're switching it up and putting away the white one. Our tree is very John Waters inspired....the tackier, the better!

I haven't taken the tree plunge yet and I've been living away from the parents for six years. I just don't know if it will happen for a long time. I don't want to destroy a live tree (and no car, anyway) and there's nowhere to store a fake one the rest of the year!

I have a fake silver tree which I'll adorn with candy colored ball ornaments I made myself years ago. I love traditional though and each year say this year I'll get one. So who knows this year might be the year.

The family story is that with the money from my dad's first paying job, he bought a green artificial tree to replace the aluminum one that my grandparents had used for several years . I now have the tree he replaced and the irony isn't lost on anyone in the family. I use vintage ornaments my aunt salvaged from a neighbor.

I also have the green tree bought during my first year of marriage. As this is my second divorced Christmas, I don't have the energy or heart to put it up.

Silver and vintage all the way. (For now.)

I grew up in Fresno, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. We always had a real tree. To me, it wouldn't be Christmas without that wonderful piney smell.

I'm now living in far northern California, and my daughter and I get a permit from the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and go out into the snow to cut a tree. I always feel bad for the tree we've chosen, but manage to convince myself that the tradition is worth it.

Each year, I try to get one special ornament. I'm pretty picky about what "spells" Christmas: Santa Claus, angels, snowmen, etc. There are a few oddities: a Santa riding a mallard and various other wooden birds. Most are handmade (not by me). Then I surround these beloved ornaments with red and green balls. I have a prejudice against blue ornaments; in my mind, blue is not a Christmas color.

We have three dogs, and I'm worried this year that the youngest one will want to play with the balls. Somehow, we'll find a way to deal with that.

I can hardly wait to unpack my Christmas ornaments.

Is that pink tree the one from Blueprint magazine? You know, the one with the pug-in-a-box?

..at the moment, still the tradition green ones. =)

My husband is the king of the Christmas tree in our household. He lovingly teases friends who have artificial trees asking them, "Would you eat a plastic turkey on Thanksgiving?"

He always wanted a tree taller than our 8 foot ceilings would allow. So about 6 years ago, he built a sunroom with 17 foot ceilings for the sole purpose of housing our tree. We call it the Christmas tree room all year round. We get a 15 foot tree every year and the neighbors tell us that Christmas hasn't started for them until they drive down the street and see our tree for the first time each season.

Haha. A plastic turkey at Thanksgiving? Some people do eat that, its called tofurkey!

We have a 7ft artificial green tree. 1500 white lights and then covered in ornaments that we have collected over the years. No theme, just memories of where each came from. I put the tree up the weekend after Thankgiving and take it down on New Year's Day. I love decorating for christmas!

I grew up with real, fresh-cut trees at christmas. And that's still what I love now. But in the midst of a renovation, we just don't have time for that... So this year my husband and I are putting up a vintage aluminum tree with simple white lights given to us by his mother. It'll be beautiful!

I have a fake 6' blue spruce I bought the first year I moved out of an apartment and into a house. It's pre-lit with white lights. I have collected all silver and white ornaments or various shapes and sizes, and always thought they looked classic yet sharp. Now I am married and have since compromised with my husband: we now have a silver and white AND Star Trek-themed tree. (but I make him hang the Borg cube in the back.)

Wow, I'm a little surprised how many people have fake trees! I guess they're more common than I thought. Driving to the foothills to cut a tree was such a great tradition, and one I can't wait to continue with my own kids.

Growing up, our tree always included one mechanical ornament (a little glass-front workshop with elves inside sawing and hammering toys) that made a low "clickclick" noise. Now, if my tree doesn't make noise, it just doesn't feel like Christmas!

We always buy from a Boy Scouts type group that goes to the mountains (I live in Alberta) and cuts down trees that are otherwise scheduled to be removed for roads, power lines, etc. We like "Charlie Brown trees" as we call them, a little scrubby, lots of multi-coloured lights, and covered in ornaments that have personal meaning or memories, even if they don't all match!

I admire prefectly styled trees but to me those belong in magazines in the houses with no clutter, it's never been a part of my family Christmas.

@mella it's not easy if you live far from Oregon but the Original Living Tree project rents out real trees (I assume they're saplings) for Xmas then takes them back to be planted and grow. I used to buy norfolk pine which are nice but not native so we could not plant them outdoors when I was done. Anyway, the tree project site is interesting.

http://www.livingchristmastrees.org/

@melle - sorry I mistyped your name.

I HAVE to have a real tree or it's just not the same. Plus, I have a 2 1/2 year old daughter and I can't imagine growing up with fake trees so I get real ones for her sake too. I use the same ornaments every year along with some we may collect or receive as gifts each year. I typically like white lights but I use colorful for my daughter since kids like colored lights more..

Since we got married, every year my husband and I go out and buy a few animal ornaments. It's been 4 years and we have a nice collection of critters (this year we got an alpaca, two amoebae, and a trout). My husband, the mad scientist, enjoys arranging them according to the geological strata. I'm just glad that he can overcome his natural urge to be a Grinch and let me have a tree.

Being allergic to real trees in really bad ventillated areas, I've had faux evergreens forever. Last year was the first Christmas with my boyfriend and we did a blue and sliver snowflake tree. All 3' of it sparkled and made us feel so grown up! This year, the 3 footer is coming back out, but I was gifted a box of my grandmother's vintage ornaments. Here's to hoping the puppy doesn't find them too interesting!

Even though the artificial pre-lit trees are nice and easy, I still love the smell and feeling of a real Frasier fir....

it has always been a tradition in my family that i decide the style of our christmas tree. i always buy the real tree a few days after thanxgiving. the kids likes to help out decorating it. in terms of ornaments, it varies every year.

Mine is the old-world German traditional live fir tree: bedecked with straw stars, Erzgebirgische musician-angels, brightly colored wood children's ornaments, pale gold and ivoryl ball ornaments, and illuminated by 2-3 dozen beeswax candles.

I got excited and already put up our 7 1/2' fir decorated w/blue and silver mostly rounds but with accents of crystals, Eiffel towers, butterflies, and the blue felt ornaments from CB2 with sequinned leaf and peacock as the tree topper.

It has to be a real tree. I've gone with decorating potted ficus or norfolk pine sometimes, but the traditional tree of my youth was always a Douglas Fir. We sometimes thought we'd try a theme but in the end we always *had* to put on the German wooden ornaments, so any colour scheme always went out the window. I'm happier for xmas to be about the traditions and rituals that are the same every year. I think some of the fun is the garish nature of xmas. I wouldn't want to live with that style all year, but for a couple weeks, the colours and sparkle are what make it special and too rigid a decorating plan always seems uptight and not as fun.

I plan to put a smallish (4'-5' tall) tree outdoors on the deck this year, with simple decorations and no lights, because have no electrical outlets on the deck.

I really want a green feather tree (like #4, but in a natural color). Until then we satisfy ourselves with a small (4') Alpine tree, strung with white LED's that have clear and silver bead sprays attached, and hung with ornaments we've collected through the years.

We have a real tree, but to be honest the decent fake ones here in England are double the price of a real one and we never want to shell that much out in December!

We have 3 strings of battery operated lights, and the bottom one is removed when we go out...this is the only way I've found so far of stopping my dog chewing on lights, he got through 3 strings of mains operated ones a couple of years ago! (while they were switched OFF I must add!).

I'm super excited tonight as I've found some White metal stars in a local shop, which fit my fave Scandinavian theme and are also dog proof! My only issue now is, how many baubles/ornaments is too many? Do I go all Scandinavian and sparse, or use loads and cover the tree? Decisions!

I'm desperate to know about the fireplace in this picture. Could you tell me anything about it? I'd love to find that stone for mine.