It has been nearly a quarter-century, but I still feel the shame. It is something I still wrestle with at this time every year. I’m sure many of you will have a hard time accepting this admission because you see me as a “traditionalist,” or “old-school” kinda guy. (Perhaps just “Old.”) I know that I am going against many of your pre-conceived notions when I admit to you that we are, indeed, a fake family.
I know. It is hard for me to even type those words, but it is true. But I ask you to not judge, because I know there are others out there like me, others who feel like they are living a lie:
We have an artificial Christmas tree. A fake.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My childhood consisted of the annual family trek to the Christmas tree lot. It was a great tradition, akin to the movie A Christmas Story. It was usually dark, after Dad got home from work. It was usually cold, as winters are in Utah. It usually included hot chocolate. We did go out into the wild and chop down our own tree one year, but as I recall, that was not such a great experience, or a great tree.
The smells, sounds and feelings of tree shopping with my family are ingrained and greatly romanticized in my memory. I remember Dad haggling for a better price. I remember the lot attendants slamming the base of the tree on the ground to open it up, and spinning it around for inspection. I remember watching them wrestle the trees onto the top of the car and secure them with brown twine. It was a part of my childhood. (My EC shared much the same experience.)
So why the fake trees? No, I have not become a Grinch, nor is it a financial move. It is quite simple:
Asthma.
My EC and some of my kids have asthma, and natural trees, or the stuff growing on them aggravates the condition, and ends up causing a season of wheezing, or worse – bronchitis and coughing. It isn’t worth it,
Having been real-tree purist all my life, an artificial tree looked like this to me:
Yes, I was a Tree Snob. However, after some shopping and accepting, I realized that there are some beautiful artificial trees out there, if you are willing to ante-up the big bucks. So that’s what we did. We bought a lovely 9-foot tree, brought home in a box, and put it up. Next came the lights, and the ornaments, and after all is said and done, it looked like Christmas.
I know that I overly romanticize the glory of the real tree, and so it wouldn’t be fair to not dig a little deeper into the reality. I recently went back through some old family photos, and one thing became apparent: Even though my Dad did his best, he bought some really ugly Christmas trees!
Some were thin and straggly, some were uneven, some didn’t make it to Christmas. I remember that, on more than one occasion, we either had to go out and replace a tree that decided to drop all its needles, or the gifts under the tree were covered by more needles than the actual tree.
I also remember the war my dad waged against the tree stand. The tree trunk has to be cut just right to stand straight. It never worked quite right the first time. I don’t mind avoiding that responsibility.
Even though everyone in the family hates having to fluff up the branched each year, it sure beats dragging the dead tree out of the house to dispose of it.
We are on our third generation fake tree. It is big, and full. They have figured out how to make them much more natural looking to help with the illusion. (I’m sitting here next to our tree as I type this – the only lights on in the house are the tree and my laptop.)
It is pre-lit.
Do you know what joy those words bring to my heart? Pre-lit. Do you want to experience the peace that Christmas brings? Buy a pre-lit tree.
Our family traditions have had to evolve with the circumstances life has dealt us. Sure, I would still rather have a real tree, but at what cost?
When I walk into my front room and see our fake tree, do you know what I see? I see Christmas.
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I’m asthmatic too. When my baby had trouble breathing when we brought in the tree, I knew we had to go fake. We bought a beautiful tree! The only thing I miss is the smell.
How Janusian of you.
“Do you want to experience the peace that Christmas brings? Buy a pre-lit tree.”
bwaahahahha! So that’s the secret!
Kristin
My mother’s birthday was today (Dec 18), growing up, that was the day that we knew we were going to decorate the tree that dad had purchased the week before. That way it could be up in the house till the day after Christmas without making a big mess.
we had a nursery/tree lot across the street. I earned my extra Christmas money from age 10-18 selling trees for the bishop in the next ward over. I knew where the best trees came from, what the best kind are depending on how you heat your home and the type of lights & decorations you put on them, the whole bit. It really is a “science.” MMM, you think you are a tree snob? Hmmpf, sniff! Grande fir were always my favorite. my first Christmas with my EC, working two jobs and going to school, and a brand new baby…I told her that the only thing I wanted for Christmas was to be able to spend the money to get “my” Christmas tree. She let me. Then we started moving to other parts of the country/world. Kentucky & Colorado were not a problem.
In Korea our tree was a 24″ fake mail ordered from Sears. I printed out a Nativity scene on a dot matrix printer for the kids to color and tape to the wall as our only other decorations that year. I swore that I would never have another fake tree. In fact, New Years Day I threw a perfectly good small tree in the dumpster I was so upset about it.
Alabama, Tennessee, New York….all great again. in fact in New York the kids were old enough that 3 years in a row we went out in the fall to pick and tag our tree. It was cut fresh enough that we could put it up the week after Thanksgiving. Then we moved to Germany. Real was a luxury…and since we lived in an apartment building that first Christmas, real trees were Verboten. We spent every weekend in November driving to Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Berlin, Munich to try and find a real looking fake tree…and found one. Since I was deploying before Christmas, we put it up after dinner Thanksgiving day…..and that tree and decorating after the dishes are done has been our tradition ever since, with the pickle going on some time after the 6th.
Now if only I could find more of the lights that we have had for 15 years, that were only supposed to last five. My EC loves them and I have yet to find replacements that don’t have purple in them.
HA HA HA, I hope it’s NOT soon. That’s what I get for eating Crunchy Cheetos for breakfast.
Your tree is beautiful!! 43 years ago my husband and I bought our first tree! Our first child was 1 1/2 and we were so excited for her. When we got it home from the tree lot and started decorating it, we discovered it had be spray painted green! We still laugh about it to this day!
I grew up with the same fake tree my entire pre-marriage life, and we bought a fake tree after marriage too. I just wouldn’t know what to do with a real tree. The great (?) thing about a fake tree is that you can leave out the bottom branches if you have large packages underneath, and my parents have even put only the front-facing half or quarter (in a corner) of the tree up, depending on their house size at the time (secured to the wall behind or the ceiling with fishing line). Our latest fake tree was pre-lit, which was great for a year or two, until it started losing about 2 strands of lights each year. We ended up having to put light strings over them and then last year we finally removed the pre-lit strings, which is a lot harder than it sounds.
We also have had generations of fake trees. My favorite words? “Oh, is it fake? I couldn’t tell.” Maybe they were sincere and maybe not but fake scent does not stir up the asthma and it adds to my illusion of old fashion. I love sitting in the dark with only the lights of my tree and my fake fireplace while I drink my hot chocolate laced with fake sugar.
My husband swears we will never have a fake tree. His parents said the same thing, but they bought a fake tree this year. One should never say never.
Beatrice, I’d keep the kitten too. 😉
We always went out and cut down a tree during my growing up years. As newlyweds we weren’t equipped in any way to do that, so we bought a cheap fake one. Now my husband is a firefighter and there is no hope for me to ever have a live tree again.
We have a live tree this year as our fake died last year after many seasons of spectacular service. Thank you for your wonderful blog. I look forward to reading it each time I see it in my inbox. Merry Christmas!!!
Well, I hate to admit it but, we have a fake tree but it’s in the garage. Why? Because last year we rescued a beautifil kitten. He managed to pull the tree down several times and we got tired of putting it back up. Now, do we get rid of our sweet little cat that we adore, or just put up our manger scene where he can’t get to it? We’ve decided to keep the cat and celebrate Christmas without the tree. Our children are grown and live in 4 different states and 3 different countries and they won’t be home for Christmas. While the cat can’t take their place, he gives us lots of love and company.
Merry Christmas
You decided to keep the cat? That is what’s wrong with the world today.
I have to agree with any recommendations to remove cats.
I will say this as nicely as I can. My husband was a cheapskate. I found that going to look for a tree at Christmas became akin to finding the holy grail. They were all “too expensive”. One year my Aunt sent us $100 for Christmas. I knew what I was going to do with it. This was back in the 90’s and the trees have gotten better and better since then, but I loved it. And we could put it up whenever we were in the mood. My husband even liked it. Yes, I miss the smell, but not much else. My dad used to “work on” the trees we bought. He was an engineer. He would cut branches off from where there were too many, and drill holes and put them where there were too few. He was a master. But the needles were always there. And the stand. And the endless cutting in the garage. Yes, we became a fake family eventually too. Merry Christmas.
The year I was attacked in a home-invasion robbery, when the holiday season arrived, we had no real Christmas Spirit. A week before Christmas, a ward member making a pilgrimage to Utah for the holidays volunteered his family’s lush, 7.5-foot tree.. We set it up, decorated it…and woke in the middle of the night, wheezing and gasping for breath. The tree spent the rest of the season at the foot of the steps, a treat for the animals of the field.
I got used to a fake tree growing up. My dad and brother spent Christmas in the hospital one year and that was the end of our “real” days. Once we could afford one my husband and I bought a fake tree and a Christmas tree scented candle. I LOVE it.
I’m with you. When we bought our house 11 years ago, the former owners left a fake tree in a box. We used it up until a few years ago when we acquired a better fake tree for free. This year I had to replace about 5 strands of lights that had completely burned out. Not so free anymore. I’d like to do a real tree one of these days. PS I read an article recently about the mold that grows on pine trees and how it increases exponentially when brought into a warm house. That’s probably what aggravates the asthma.
We’ve had a “fake tree” our whole 13 years of marriage…and I hear ya. Pre-lit is an amazing thing.
We are privy to the pre-lit tree. *glances in kitchen* Love it. 🙂
The discussion of Fake vs Real Christmas trees has been one that has nearly brought our marriage to divorce. We don’t have tree lots here, everybody goes and cuts their own. What a disaster! Finally, I went and bought one from the grocery store, it was too expensive! the next year I put my foot down and marched to K-Mart and bought an artificial tree. No more sick kids, no more angry mom and Dad didn’t have to do anything but put the lights on it. It has been that way for the last 25 years. Now EC is contemplating a pre-lit tree. Merry Christmas!
Oh come on, you can’t write this and NOT show a photo of your lovely tree! Lets see!
Please?
OK. I’ll post one.
I am so with you! We actually go out and pilfer a couple real tree limbs to go in the fake tree for the smell. When our kids were young we always went and cut a tree (can do that in the south without freezing) and there was always this one tree that was to big and never got bought and each year my son would beg us to get it so it could “fulfill it’s Christmas destiny”. The year he came home from his mission was 2 days before Christmas so we went and got it (they gave it to us because they knew no one would buy it) and put it up in the front yard for him. Unfortunately he came home sick and didn’t really care-oh well the thought right?
My annual holiday “cold” never returned after I bought my fake tree. And pre-lit is the best holiday invention! I need a pre-lit house!
Your not alone, we are a fake family as well! We actually have two pre lit fake trees, one with white lights and one with colored. The colored goes in the Family Room and the white light one in the Living Room. Its fun because they are both decorated totally differently so I get to have lots of fun with the decorations! I remember the same things from childhood though, there was even a tree farm in my town. Great post, and if this is the fakest thing about your family then I think you are probably doing something right, in fact something very right…thanks for sharing this!
Did I write this post and send it to you? I must be a guest poster or else you’ve plagiarized my life story, at least in regard to Christmas trees. As one gets older the fake tree becomes more lovable. Last year I had to relight my pre-lit Christmas tree, it was worth it because it’s a great fake. I keep thinking I might get a little real tree just once more before I die which I hope it’s soon.
You hope it’s soon? That’s the old Christmas Spirit!
Our youngest daughter also had asthma, and we fell in love with fake Christmas trees long before pre-lit options. It never bothered us, since – on Valentine’s Day – we didn’t use real hearts.
Oh goodness, now that made me really laugh!