Live vs. Fake Trees

Last Sunday, our Christmas tree went up. We have a fake tree, courtesy of Target, from four years ago and each year, Maki and I have a discussion about the merits of real vs. fake trees.

We got our artificial tree several years ago as an emergency decorating measure, because we were throwing a dinner for friends who had just gotten engaged. The house looked so plain, so I made a trip to Target and made an impulse buy.

My sisters are hard-core real tree believers. They love the scent of pine, and picking a tree is party of their holiday traditions.

But Maki and I think it's better for the environment to have an artificial tree (we're not sure of this in the short-run, but in the long run, we are convinced of it), and, let's face it, it's super easy to pull the tree out of the garage and have it up in matter of minutes. Our tree even comes with built-in lights. We also have a cat, and I used to worry about poisoning the poor creature. Finally, a real tree is so much work; you have to keep it watered and sweep up the pine needles every few days.

I grew up with a fake, silver, aluminum tree and if they were available at Target at the time of my purchase, we would have an aluminum tree today. There is something so retro and so obvioiusly fake about aluminum trees; I love them!

How about you? Are you a real or artificial person?