Looks like we have to get an Artificial X-mas tree this year

I better go buy mor guitars!  John Reardon probably has enough LPs to do this.

We’ve cut down on over-decorating. We used to have garland and lights everywhere in the house.  We used to have a huge 9 foot fake tree in our family room (cathedral ceiling) but once the kids were born, we started buying real ones, at first cutting them down but later getting the IKEA ones and putting them up the first week of December.  We liked the smell of a real tree. And so we’ve kept on buying them.  I’m ready to go artificial but my wife isn’t.

We were talking with my SIL today as she was looking for Christmas ornaments at this craft show we attended.  So I asked if they had ever been to the Bonner’s Christmas store in Frankenmuth, MI as she loves everything Christmas.  These people build and repair all those large mechanical Christmas displays there.  The store is HUGE!  So I told them that next spring, we should head over for a couple of days and the girls can shop and the guys can play golf. So I think we have another outing planned.

Ha ha!  Fortunately (or unfortunately), we don’t have pets or little ones running around here.  My son has 2 cats at his house and they make a mess of his tree within days of it going up

I'm kinda curious about when you guys actually put your trees up. I was thinking that since it's now less than a month till Christmas, it wouldn't really be out of place.

I didn't have a tree for many years....Then, seven years ago, my newest landlord had an extra miniature table-top artificial tree that was pre-dressed with lights and ornaments and insisted on giving it to me. I generally bring it out of storage two or three weeks before Christmas and put it back in the box on Boxing Day.

I try to put my Christmas lights up on the house around mid November on a mild day but I refuse to turn them on until Dec 1. I usually buy my tree the first week of December and since it is usually wrapped for storage, I cut it to length (7.5’), place it onto the stand, unwrap it and let gravity work it’s magic on the branches for a couple of days before bringing it in. So usually by the first weekend of December, we are putting the tree up. Years ago, we also used to keep the tree up until the Epiphany on January 6. However, in recent years, I’ve been a little reluctant to keep the tree lit up past Jan 1 as one year I noticed some brown dried needles on the tree while removing the ornaments. We’ve been a little more careful when putting the lights onto the tree to try to keep the lights spread out a bit. We might go and buy some LED lights this year as they don’t generate heat like the incandescent bulbs.

We may have found some real trees for around $40. We went looking at the fake ones today and the only ones that looked decent cost over $400 and my wife is big on realism. So we figured that for 400 bucks we could buy Ikea trees for the next 20 years or the more expensive real trees for the next 10 years. So we’ll just try to get a real one again this year and see what happens for next year.

I'm okay with decorating & I'm okay with not decorating.

I'm good with either.

Artificial trees make that so much easier.

But hey--nothign against people getting real ones either.

I do remember at one point in my childhood where we convinced my Dad to get a real tree.

It’s all you need!

Right out of the box--cool.
We've had a larger artificial one for a few years, but a year or two ago bought a couple os small ones like that as the other one makes things feel crowded.
I like the small ones like that.