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You can also get a 6.5' prelit white tree at WalMart for $35!

...or you could do without - and simply enjoy the public holiday displays that our Cities, Offices and Merchant Associations put up every year.

I wish they had a Living Christmas tree rental in NYC!

"I wish they had a Living Christmas tree rental in NYC!"

But they do!

It's called "New Hampshire"
;-)

I'm doing one of two things this year. Painting a Tree on butchers paper and sticking yellow cut out junk mail stars onto it. Or bringing my potted fig tree inside and hanging decorations off that.

Also loving the branches idea!

So all those tree farms out by Ojai and Santa Paula can just go belly-up? Why would anyone, in this economy, suggest buying a fake tree made in China, rather than supporting local (or at least regional businesses)?

I understand if you don't want a live tree, but at least it's a local small business. Buying a hunk of plastic is dreadful. It's not green, and it's sure not Christmas.

I've been looking for one of those wooden pencil trees everywhere! where is that photo from? it's not listed in the roundup, I don't feel "covered"!

Palmetto, I agree... I'm not sure why people are so anti-tree. Maybe there's an ecological reason I'm not aware of (erosion? fertilizer runoff?). The argument to stop cutting down a trees to "save a tree" on a mono-cultured farm is a lot like saying we should stop picking pumpkins on halloween, or roses on valentine's day.

"Why would anyone, in this economy, suggest buying a fake tree made in China, rather than supporting local (or at least regional businesses)?"

You've definitely got a point.

I gotta wonder when AT Bloggers are going to quit with the
"Look at all the Imported Crap you can buy now!!!"
...and start showing some responsibility by promoting "Made in the USA"
(or at least "Made On This Continent")

ange--the little wooden tree can be bought at dwr!

Why oh why will nobody in my family go for a Channukah bush?

Our fake, plastic tree was purchased at a garage sale this summer for almost nothing. It was a great choice for us. We saved it from being thrown out, spent very little to bring something with great potential into our home, and love it so much that we'll probably keep it for a long time.

Christmas probably shouldn't be defined by the type of tree you've chosen for your home, anyway.

I got a cute little white, 2 foot tree at Borders for $12. It's really cute and full. They have the same size at Target for $10 with lights, but they're so skinny and skimpy.

My family has always used a big green fake tree. We tried a real tree one year and it was a pain to get in the house and set up. So many needles and sap and scratches. Maybe if we had a guy in the family?

I saw that big gold tree at Target. Usually I hate gold, but it was actually really pretty. It's not a shiny gold, more of a dull, elegant gold.

At Urban Outfitters, you can get the sad Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

I cannot do without a Christmas tree! I love sitting by it at night with it all lit up. It's so cozy and nice; it makes me happy.

Some of my local stores are selling baby fir trees. Decorate it for Christmas, plant it somewhere in the spring. :)

P.S. Although I like cut trees, I am anti feather trees.

Someone told me recently that all fake trees have lead in them. Is that true?????

"Someone told me recently that all fake trees have lead in them. Is that true?????"

Probably - but it's only dangerous if you eat the tree...

Here's more info on Artifical Trees & Lead:

http://www.christmastree.org/faketrees.cfm

I have a cheap, spindly, fake 'evergreen' tree that I put up with pride each year. For me, the tree is a hanger for the ornaments though the symbolism of using "evergreen" trees isn't lost on me. To me, the ritual of putting up the same ornamaments (a number of which were given to me as gifts from good friends) is where a lot of the meaning lies. I have memories attached to many ornaments and it is my memories that are persistent and meanigful - not so much the actual tree.

I recently purchased a second tree for upstairs - a vintage aluminum tree much like one my grandmother had. Her tree is long gone, but I still like those cheesy, fake aluminum trees. They are beautiful to me and I can remember the wonderment about them that I experienced when I was very young - again, not so much the tree but the memories that it evokes...

There is nothing like coming home to the scent of a freshly cut pine tree! But I love the idea of using branches. It's easy, cheap and can look really chic. You can easily vamp up the branches with spray paint and glitter.

I bought a 4ish-foot potted tree so that I can put it out on my balcony after the holidays and hopefully use it again next year.

Re fake trees ... in this era, I am leaning towards "Buying American." I know it's irrational and anti-free trade (which in the end helps everyone grow economically), but our country is wounded and needs support from its citizens.

On the other hand, my one daughter and my two sisters are all allergic to pine. If I want a tree, it's got to be fake.

What I've done recently is put on my mantle little 50s era bottle-brush trees sparkled with glitter. They were bought in a thrift store in Duluth, Minnesota. I have no idea where they were originally manufactured. Japan?

My friend gave me a Halloween tree a few years ago for my birthday. It is tiny black "pine" tree, which she also gave me a set of ornaments for. I use it for a Christmas tree, decorated with little red ornaments. I sort of love it.

I live in a studio and go home every year for Christmas, so I can't really see the use in having a real tree.

I am, however, totally temped by a table-top sized silver tree. It is from the future!

I'm allergic to pine trees, so we've given them up this year after a number of years of sneezing and wheezing. We went with a fake tree and we figure it will see us through the next 10 years of christmases, thus making it a sound purchase. AT that point, the kids will be grown up, and we'll pass it on to another family through freecycle, assuming it's still in decent shape.

It's small; it's not pre-lit...but it's there to fill with ornaments that mean something to all of us.

In the past I've made trees out of construction paper and blue-tacked them to the wall. That worked, too.

I liked the Christmas tree decals, but they are $100! You can get a real tree, delivered, and picked up after Christmas,for less than that.

I like to put up my ornaments on something every few years, and pick up a real tree, about 4 to 5 feet, possibly even a little bigger, for under $20. Mostly because I don't want to keep a fake tree all the years I don't bother.

I'm not really into it this year, as I'm not a big fan of Christmas as far as hype goes. It seems densely packed into a strange one-month period instead of spread throughout the year. I might think of something around March and do it. Who knows. I don't know why it's not weird to "grow" a tree and hang shiny things on it in December but it is in March. There's nothing especially seasonal about the feelings and meanings of Christmas and most of my ornaments don't spell out anything particularly wintry to me. Round shiny balls mean Christmas because...?

I actually have at least one thing I bought that's an ornament some years ago for my first Xmas tree living on my own, which is a goofy white bunny rabbit with wings and a fairy wand that I hung on the wall because it's funny, and I keep it there all the time. I might go through my stuff and see if there's anything else I don't need to keep boxed up just because the culture dictates we dress trees properly in our homes in December only. Hey, you asked for alternatives to the Christmas tree, and mine is hey let's do it a couple months from now instead. Let's have Christmas all year round or any time we want.

In a lot of places there are local organizations that'll accept living Christmas trees as a donation. They use certain species for parks or as street trees - often native species. You might want to look to see if someone in your area is taking such trees, and if so pickup a living tree of the correct type and donate it at the end of the season.

Christmas trees - both the cut and plastic kind - seem like such a waste, especially the larger ones. I love the decorated branches idea, though - that could look very modern and elegant, and it recycles something that might otherwise just be disposed of.

I've always loved the hanging wooden Christmas tree Kim Novak had in her Greenwich Village apartment in "Bell, Book and Candle". It was ultra moderne and chic!

Part of the joy of AT is seeing the things that people take umbrage at. The upside of having a fake tree is that it is reusable and hypoallergenic; the downside is that it is not biodegradable, is possibly made in sweatshops, and many are tacky.

The upside of having a real tree is that it creates oxygen, makes use of land too rocky for crops, sometimes employs locals, is compostable, and smells nice. The downside is that it is usually grown in a monoculture - not the greatest for the environment, needs to be replaced yearly, may end up in a landfill, and is allergenic to some.

The best solution environmentally is probably a live tree or doing without. I'm probably going to buy a live wreath as a compromise. I've also seen many neat festive arrangements here on AT. My eventual goal is to grow all my own Christmas greenery - holly, ivy, some kind of conifer, bay, magnolia, citrus and/or pomegranates - and do my own arrangements and garlands.

Growing up we would go to a Christmas tree farm and cut our own, sadly, that tradition has since long gone and then it was go to a tree lot to get one already cut. Today, Mom uses an artificial 7' pre-lit tree for practical reasons and paid less than $100 for it and it looks fantastic. She's had it now 3 years and she's gotten her money's worth out of it.

I did the rent a tree thing from IKEA w/ a $10 gift card if I bring it back for them to turn into mulch, but after bringing it home, up stairs to my little apartment, then cutting off the inch at the bottom before even setting it in the stand was a hassle so when I moved into my current place, I bought a 6' non pre lit tree at Big Lots for less than $20 and it's held up just fine in the 5 years I've had it and I use the old school c-7 bulbs on it. :-)

In fact, it's all up and decorated too.

Ciddyguy-- I don't know where you are, but there are cut your own places around LA.

http://pickyourownchristmastree.org/CAxla.php

The City of LA has a tree recycling program, so it doesn't have to end up in a landfill.

And how do you get a live pine wreath? Live succulents, maybe.

To each his own.

I have lived a lot of years in places where live trees were forbidden due to the fire hazard. So I always got a fake, and I kept it for year after year, changing only when I needed to move a fair distance or had different space to work with.

In my decorating scheme, the tree is merely a substrate for the excessive number of ornaments and lights, so it wouldn't really make sense to have a live tree -- you'd never know!

Nothing succeeds like excess!

Real, ie. not fake. It is alive, though it wouldn't stay that way forever.

In response to "Why would anyone, in this economy, suggest buying a fake tree made in China, rather than supporting local (or at least regional businesses)?"
I completely agree with buying local and supporting the United States (my parents are in the military...believe me, I understand) but when I break out in hives and get very very itchy around pine trees...I prefer to go buy a classic plastic tree that will last me so many years, than have to live with not being able to breathe in my own home. You've gotta give some of us a break.

I bought my pink, 6' tall Christmas tree at Big Lots back in October...for only $50!

Sure, it's fake...sure, it's made in China...but does this mean I'm less of a patriot than the family next door with the real tree? Not hardly. It means that I'm being laid off in January and I'd rather spend the meager pittance I've managed to save up on things like food and shelter rather than - yet another - real Christmas tree (in the event that, Heaven forbid, my job is still "walking to the mailbox", anyway).

I loved this post! It inspired me to decorate my 8 ft ladder -...it actually looks pretty cool - better than sitting in the corner of my loft. I think it helps use some of the "up-space" (is that even a term - I know there is up-lighting...). I never would've been able to get an eight foot Christmas tree into my apartment by myself and keep my dog out of the water dish for the period it was up... It is industrial-chic.