I just bought a christmas tree.

[DrWeird]

Dwarf Alberta Spruce. Six bucks. And it will outlive me. I don't see why more people don't by living trees. They should. They just need a little more elbow grease.

[LSparkle]

1. That's great!

And you'll have that "Christmas tree smell" year-round!

[MercutioATC]

2. I usually buy 7' trees. Do you know what a 7' balled tree weighs?

...neither do I, but I know it's a lot.

I do cut up my trees and throw them in my compost pile when I'm done with them, though. That's SORT of ecologically sensitive, isn't it?

[DrWeird]

5. Yeah, helped my mom move one once.

Like I said, it takes more elbow grease. But it's not that bad.

[MercutioATC]

12. I don't know if my elbows HAVE that much grease...

It's a good idea, especially if you have someplace to plant the tree when you're done with it. My parents did it a couple of times when I was a kid.

[China_cat]

3. We used to have a live tree

replanted in the front yard.

One year about this time we got up to find that someone sawed it off and took it away.

[LSparkle]

7. That sucks!

If anyone should have cut it down and used it as an indoor tree, it should have been you!

[Droopy]

4. You help save trees when you use a fake one

My parents have had the same tree for about 15 years and it still looks good. They use a fake one because it is more convenient. I don't have a tree in my own home because I'm the only one living here and I seldom have company, but if I did have a tree it would be a fake one.

[LSparkle]

8. But no smell!

Our family used a fake tree for around 5 years while I was growing up and I absolutely missed that smell ... Season wasn't the same without it.

[girl gone mad]

11. Christmas tree farming..

is one of the more ecologically and environmentally friendly industries. Most tree farms are small operations. They plant their own trees for harvest, just like any other farmer.

When you buy a fake tree, chances are you are supporting big corporations and big oil companies.

This comes up every year on DU. I'm sorry to be pushy, but my uncle, a school teacher., farmed Christmas trees for extra income. He took great care of his land, right down to relocating any birds that had may have nested in trees marked for harvest.

[tandot]

14. We have a little 5' fake tree and pine scented simmering liquid & candles

We paid under $20 and this is the second Xmas we have put it up. From the distance, it looks actually like a real tree.

Best buy ever. No mess to clean up and way cheaper than buying a new tree every year.

[claudiajean]

6. When I was growing up, my grandmother lived with us...

...and she had quite the green thumb.

Every year, she bought a live evergreen of one species or another. It lived in the house, fully decorated during December, and she would plant it out on the half-acre my family has between Christmas and New Year's (we have fairly mild winters).

Grandma's gone, but I can go to my Mom's house and walk the back forty through a species sampler forest of Grandma's Christmas trees, some of which are 40 feet tall now, and remember that the blue spruce was Christmas of 69, the doug fir was Christmas of 71, and the nordic pine was the year before the Watergate hearings, so it must have been Christmas of 73.

It's like a living garden of memories.

[LSparkle]

9. That's absolutely wonderful ...

A living memory garden; it doesn't get much better than that.

[loudestchick]

10. What a wonderful story!

I lost my last grandparent early in this past year...this will be my first Christmas w/o her...I remember her best when I make Pizzelles w/ my kids (I inherited her irons)

[Lavender Brown]

13. That is awesome.

:thumbsup: