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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Dec 1 2018, 2:35am
Post #1 of 13
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Christmas Trees!
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Over on the Fiesta thread, I've noticed that a few of us have artificial trees that are decades old! If you decorate a tree for the holidays, what kind do you like? For how long do you keep your artificial trees?
(I HOPE you don't store a live tree in the attic, then bring it down the following year...!)
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Alassëa Eruvande
Valinor
Dec 1 2018, 4:33am
Post #2 of 13
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But when I was a kid, my mother and brother were allergic to Christmas trees. So my mom got a fake tree. Not just any fake tree. It was a second hand, bottle brush monstrosity that was very poky. You had to insert each branch into the central pole using color coded holes to match the branch end. I hated it. I hated it even more when I got too close somehow while hanging ornaments and poked my eye on a branch! One year, my brothers and I rebelled and refused to put up the fake tree. We went out into the pasture and cut a mesquite branch. Since mesquites don't have leaves in the winter, we had to fancy it up somehow. We spray painted it gold and stuck it in a bucket of sand. It looked awesome!  
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Thor 'n' Oakenshield
Rohan
Dec 1 2018, 2:40pm
Post #3 of 13
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We have one main tree, which is real, and then two smaller fake trees
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The two small artificial trees go in the guest bedroom and the hallway, while the real tree is the one that gets all the attention, in the living room.
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Annael
Immortal
Dec 1 2018, 5:10pm
Post #4 of 13
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well, I normally would have voted "a real tree"
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But this year I got a fake birch tree because the family is going to a mountain resort for the holidays, so we're skipping the real tree (and the fake one will go with us). It looks beautiful and goes perfectly with my collection of icicle ornaments.
However. Normally, we get a noble fir, or occasionally get a permit and traipse into the mountains to a stand of silver firs that grow under the powerlines (so have to be cut anyway). I LOVE the smell and the look of a real tree. Will be putting fresh greens up all around the house for the smell . . . and it's not Christmas if you don't have to vacuum up needles after, is it now?
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Annael
Immortal
Dec 1 2018, 5:12pm
Post #5 of 13
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I did something like that once
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I was living in a tiny place & had no room for a tree. Then we had a storm and I found a large fir branch in the yard. Stuck it in a bucket and hung ornaments from it!
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Dec 2 2018, 3:07pm
Post #7 of 13
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I love the smell of real trees, but definitely not their needle mess! //
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Cygnus
Lorien
Dec 2 2018, 9:27pm
Post #8 of 13
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Once in awhile we'll get a real one but it's another fake one this year. Part of the problem is that I want to put it up so early and the earlier it gets put up, the earlier a real one starts to shed. Plus, I like to leave it up as long as my I can....eventually my wife takes it down because I never will....I'm not too lazy....I just don't want to and it makes me too sad. I'm a post Christmas blues kinda guy.
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Na Vedui
Rohan
Dec 6 2018, 12:31am
Post #9 of 13
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There's a holly-tree up the garden (though with no berries, alas). Each year I cut a bunch of twigs and attach it to a long pole tied to a table-leg, and hang the decorations on that. I also make an Advent wreath from garden ivy and moss with four candles and a few little decorations, to light on the four Sundays running up to Christmas.
The pole later takes a hazel branch, for the Easter egg tree, Hallowe'en decorations, and anything else through the year until it's time for the Christmas holly again.
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Dec 6 2018, 7:50pm
Post #10 of 13
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We finally got rid our 30-year-old artificial tree
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Uncle Baggins is a hoarder and our house is literally full of boxes. He moved 40 boxes of teapots into storage but the barbie dolls have been arriving every week and are rivaling the teapots. There's scarcely room to sit down, let alone put up a tree. But he's trying to clear a space on top of some of the boxes to put up a sweet little 3-foot artificial tree that we got recently.
My favorite decoration is the Yule wreath I put up every year (like an Advent wreath.) It sits on the kitchen table amongst the teapots and barbie dolls, and has foliage from our juniper and grape holly that I replace when it dries out. I light one more candle every week as solstice draws near.
I also have a lovely flaming chalice made by the same artisan who made the one in our UU church. I fill the aluminum holder from a tealight with isopropyl alcohol, and it burns beautifully for about ten minutes.
(This post was edited by Aunt Dora Baggins on Dec 6 2018, 7:51pm)
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swordwhale
Tol Eressea
Dec 13 2018, 11:33pm
Post #11 of 13
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When I was a kid we rearranged the living room, went out and got a real tree and decorated it. I continued in that vein for many years.
In grade school one of my teachers referred to fake trees as "overgrown bottlebrushes" which is pretty much what they looked like back then.
And those silver tinsel things, ugh...
At some point I inherited a nice fake store display tree from where I worked (tall and narrow) and put it up... my mother didn't like it because it looked like a store tree.
I put up some more real trees.
Hatched out some nice preying mantises once...
The cats only seemed to bang off the bottom ornaments. Mostly.
Old real trees could be taken to the wildlife rehabber as habitat for the owls and hawks in the flight cages. The owls liked to stash their leftovers in the trees. We often found "rat empties" full of maggots.
I put a few of my leftover trees in the garden or yard corners for birds.
One stayed green so long I thought it would start growing.
It died.
I got a Norfolk Island Pine in a pot. It's still growing sloooooooooowly, the branches have a dragon and something or other from the Last Airbender on them, Christmas lights (year round) and a faerie beach party. There used to be an Avengers beach party, but I moved it. Then I got kittens. The potted pine is now wearing a cone of shame to keep the kittens out of the faerie beach party.
Bought a balled live tree once. Had to use a hand truck to move it. Had to research all kinds of stuff about how to not keep it inside so long it wakes up and then dies when you put it back outside. Eventually planted it. It is now a good 15 feet tall... only the top is green, the horses ate the bottom bits.
Our diving club did underwater Christmas trees every year in the diving quarry. It is Pennsylvania, December, the water is just above freezing, and I used progressively heavier wetsuits (as I could buy them). My friends had dry suits. Bah. Humbug. On land you put water in the tree stand, in water you put land in the tree stand (rocks). Those little foam balls with the satin thread on them compress at about twenty feet down, then the thread wafts off... also, if they were red, they are now brown because red light does not reach that depth... in a quarry, in winter. Tinsel garland becomes a maniacal monster of the deep as you wrestle it through the water... each little tinsel foozle is a drag surface, slowing it down. Decorating the tree (temporarily) with bubbles is fun. Pouring hot water down your wetsuit before you get into the cold water helps... do not underestimate the heat holding power of your "cooler" tho, my two gallons were VERY hot that day...
On the New Year's eve dive, we found bluegills nesting in the tree...
Now I have the Norfolk Island Pine, several small fake trees strung with lights and left up permanently. Some have owls and pinecones on them. One is entirely a sea theme (shells and small plushies and stuff). One tree is a branch, drilled with holes, with twigs of a fake tree stuck in (recycling!!!). It's held plush sled dogs in Christmas stockings before, but now just has a large barn owl. There is also the antique dogsled (piled with plush huskies) and the mermaid driftwood tree: take one large stick, put other sticks across it in gradually decreasing size as you go up, tie them on, place in tree stand, string with lights, tule (in ocean colors) and bubbly balls, add the mermaids you keep finding in the thrift store plushie bins...
The "tree" I "put up" this year is a tree shaped candle I found at the thrift shop...
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swordwhale
Tol Eressea
Dec 13 2018, 11:37pm
Post #12 of 13
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There is some debate on whether fake or live trees are better for the environment.
Live ones can be turned into habitat or mulch. And you can grow more.
Fake ones can be used for a very long time.
What to do with the fake ones when they die?
You can cut off the branches and twigs...
stuff some in a pair of unused old boots, add decorations like ribbon or models or toys for seasonal or year round decoration.
make a wreath
a swag
a yard deer
drill holes in a branch and stick the fake tree bits in for a Charlie Brown tree
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Ioreth
Rivendell
Oct 31 2020, 11:34am
Post #13 of 13
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I for over 10 years had the same small christmas tree (about 30 cm in heihgt) usually all-year-round and putting feathers over all the christmas lights by easter :P
I now since about 5 years have two new ones, as small, but the one in blue and the other in silver :)
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