Do you have a live tree this year?

[HopeHoops]

Poll question: Do you have a live tree this year?

Okay, I know that's an oxymoron for one that has been cut down, but you know what I mean.

When I was a kid, we got a balled live tree and planted it in the spring. It was a blue spruce and my dad planted it too close to the house for how big it was going to get. I've been back past the house recently and the fucker is HUGE! It pretty well eats that corner of the house. I think that was about '72 or so, so it is getting up there in age.

We haven't had one in several years. When we plan to travel over Christmas, we don't get one. Instead we use a gumball machine on a stand filled with M&M's with a Santa hat, google eyes, and a red nose, and a strand of Christmas lights going around the stand. This year we have both up. We got a beautiful tree for $39 and it had just been cut the day before. If we get one, we get it from a local group - the Lions Club this year - and never from a box store. My eldest daughter is back from her first semester of college so we decided to surprise her.

Anyway, do you have a live tree this year?

[mnhtnbb]

1. Proud to be the first vote for the last option! We always had live trees

until our house burned down two years ago--along with all the family ornaments collected through the years.
I even had ornaments that were on the tree when I was a child. Hubby managed to salvage three or four
ornaments from the burned out mess (after the fire) that were the Christmas boxes, but we used to have
more than enough ornaments to cover a 6 ft tree.

I didn't have the heart to start over on a big tree, so I bought a little table top pre-lit tree the first year after the fire and this is the third Christmas we are using it.

[HopeHoops]

23. I'm glad you added "(after the fire)" in that post.

I had an image of a horrible situation, "Honey, get out and call for the kids and the dog. I'm going after the tree ornaments."

It is an obvious tragedy and I don't mean to make light of it, but that's what popped into my head until I read "(after the fire)", and then I felt relieved. As for the table tree, one of my earliest memories is a small fake tree (about 12") with hand-made decorations and a couple of very tiny red glass ball ornaments. I'm sure it is older than I am and I'm 46. The "needles" are a type of sturdy paper. I have it now and still put it up every few years.

[mnhtnbb]

27. The fire was 4:30 a.m. in August--so all the ornaments were boxed

in a closet under the stairs: a waterlogged mess that wasn't completely burned up but was basically destroyed.

I like our little tree, now. I like that I can put it up and take it down very quickly, but I do miss
all the ornaments that the kids made when they were younger.

[soleiri]

2. Live tree

There's a christmas tree farm about 2 minutes away from our house.
We go every year and pick out our own tree.
It's run by a really nice family.
It's one of the Christmas traditions we look forward to every year.

[Kali]

3. we just cut a few branches from a juniper tree and baling wire them together

glen beck is a fucking freak in all the negative meaning of that word

[dropkickpa]

4. Fake ass tree

I am allergic to pine trees and also the fungus and molds that grow on them, have no desire to fuck around with a real tree, the skulls hang better on the fake tree, and Dropkid likes that she can set up the tree herself.

[Xipe Totec]

5. If it's cut, it ain't live anymore n/t

[Kali]

6. hell, mine drop pollen all over the place and drink a hella lot of water!

[appal_jack]

28. not true

Plant tissue is technically alive until it dessicates or begins to decay.

That cut tree in peoples' living rooms is actively photosynthesizing and respiring, which is why it requires water.

This bio-geek trivia tidbit brought to you by appal_jack's $.02

:)

[Xipe Totec]

30. Geeked again!

I hate that.

Even more so, I hate that you are technically correct; the best kind of correct.

But the tree is dying, and will be dead by Epiphany.

[fizzgig]

7. nope and haven't for five or six years

it's just not worth the money, time or killing a tree. we have a bouganvilla at my dad's house that sports a few christmas ornaments year round, but that's it.

[bigwillq]

8. Ours is fake (nt)

[Fire Walk With Me]

9. A live one; it was a gift to the group home in which I live

so I didn't have time to ask for a doppelganger.

[brendan120678]

10. Fake one for now...

until the kid gets a little older, I think.

We used to get a live one every year though.

[Brickbat]

11. Live tree, which we cut from our forest.

Now that's fresh.

[pitohui]

12. my live tree lives in a pot and is the same one for many years, maybe a decade

i forgot how old my tree is but it's pretty old

i have it in a pot that rolls around and when it gets too big, i cut it back, works for me!!!

it's a ficus type tree, those guys love attention, i swear it always looks happier and starts putting out leaves when i give it some xmas lights

[HopeHoops]

24. A Norwegian Pine is great for that if you have a place with enough natural light.

They don't do so well without sufficient natural light, but they make beautiful Christmas trees and great year-round plants.

[JPZenger]

13. 30 foot high artificial tree catches fire in PA. school

Here's a story you don't normally see. Yesterday, a 30 foot high artificial tree caught fire and burned in the large lobby of the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, PA. It was caused by electrical wiring.

www.pennlive.com

[HopeHoops]

25. Yep. Saw that this morning. I get the Patriot-News delivered daily.

[jus_the_facts]

14. Haven't had any type of tree for over a decade....the lights made my elect. bill double....

....I said NEVER AGAIN and meant it. BAH HUMBUG! :evilgrin:

[pitohui]

15. the new modern lights don't seem to do anything to the electric bill

the bills this winter and last winter seem to be unusually low, which is good, considering the cost of FOOD has gone thru the roof since katrina

[jus_the_facts]

16. I had some of those dancing lights...they were hand me downs along with the fake tree....

:hi:

No doubt...my bill is less a month than it costs to eat for a week. :crazy:

[Raffi Ella]

17. I used to get real trees

but they're so much trouble to bring in and set up and then you have to water it all month. So, for the last few years I've been using an old 6 foot fake one.

Last year after Christmas I bought a new 9ft. fake tree that was on sale. It was $850 originally, I paid just under $200 and that included shipping cost- It's the prettiest fake tree I have ever seen, it looks real.

I'm very happy with it. :D

Your "gumball tree" sounds cool~ Happy Holidays to you and your family!

[tonysam]

31. I like fake trees

I have always used them and use them for years on end. This year, though, I got lazy and bought a tabletop fiber optic tree instead of dragging my six-footer in from the storage unit.

Besides, the pitch on live trees really does a number on my sinuses and I get a big allergy from them.

[dugaresa]

18. used to always have a live tree

however many eons ago after many live trees fell over and ruined the hardwood floors underneath due to water leakage we went the artificial route.

[rcrush]

19. Its not living anymore!

I killed the motherfucker!

[old mark]

20. Glenn Beck IS an asshole, but we have a live 18" pine tree growing in a pot

in the living room. We put presents under it, and hang happy shit on it that's our tree.

I don't like killing them, either.

Oh, and Glenn, you really are an asshole!!! Fuck, YEAH!!!

mark

[Deep13]

21. I prefer trees to big, green toilet brushes.

Real trees aid conservation by supporting tree farms that could easily become golf courses or subdivisions. They provide habitate for critters. They help absorb CO2. Then they're mulched. A fake tree lasts a few years, is made from toxic, nonrenewable chemicals. If they catch fire, and they can, they burn toxic. And after five or ten years of use it will spend forever in a landfill.

Since moving out here I have not gotten around to getting a tree at all.

[HopeHoops]

26. "Big green toilet brushes" - I just have one thing to say.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[El Supremo]

22. Whatever happened to aluminum Christmas trees? >>

[appal_jack]

29. wow

Some day these will be excavated out of our 1960's-era landfills, and people will marvel that they were manufactured at all, after they get over the stupendous shock that people who owned them actually threw them away.

-app

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

32. I don't worry as much with the fake tree

I never liked having a pine tree drying out in my living room, especially with a fireplace in the same room. They burn like they're made of gasoline.

:hi: