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RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I have an artificial tree.

Every year my wife talks about getting one, and every year we end up with a fir tree strapped to the roof of the car.

We do artificial purely because finding and paying for a real one is sometimes prohibitve. Plus last time, we had little twigs and leaves around the living room fo months.

Reliant121 wrote:We do artificial purely because finding and paying for a real one is sometimes prohibitve. Plus last time, we had little twigs and leaves around the living room fo months.

We had fake trees my whole life. My first real tree was eight years ago. My then two year old daugher was found under the tree eating pine needles.

First and last real tree.

Btw....her diapers smelled like air fresheners for days after that.

Mark wrote:

Reliant121 wrote:We do artificial purely because finding and paying for a real one is sometimes prohibitve. Plus last time, we had little twigs and leaves around the living room fo months.

We had fake trees my whole life. My first real tree was eight years ago. My then two year old daugher was found under the tree eating pine needles.

First and last real tree.

Btw....her diapers smelled like air fresheners for days after that.

I... wish I wasn't chuckling at that last bit. But...

Last real tree we had was in the mid-80's. Something was really fucked up with it and it lost all its needles within two weeks, despite us keeping it watered. We vacuumed the needles, but something odd happened and the needles turned into an awful-smelling green smear. We had to replace the rug after.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I... wish I wasn't chuckling at that last bit. But...

Same here. That's terrible, but...

And artificial all the way for me. No dropping needles, no need to water, pay once and get many years out of it...

Dude, you sure you didn't have a fake tree that melted?

Well, Mom does like to keep the heat on high...

The trick is that it doesn't just need to be watered... keep feeding it a little non-diet cola and some aspirin.

For a christmas tree? I hate the damn thing's anyway, I'd far rather have the convenience of a an artificial one. We have a white one this year...

SolkaTruesilver wrote:Going as far as removing christmas trees from public locations. WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS TREE HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH CHRISTIAN RELIGION?! IT'S AS CHRISTIAN AS SANTA CLAUSE!

On the contrary - it's considerably less Christian than Santa Claus.

Yes, for a Christmas tree. The sugar in the cola keeps the thing going, while the aspirin acts the same as in a person - it's an anti-coagulant/thinner, which helps keep the sap moving more freely. My wife requires that we keep the tree up until Orthodox Christmas (January 7,) and we've never yet thrown out a bald tree.

I didn't mean to question its value to the tree, purely that...Personally, I couldn't justify the effort to keep the tree going. This is probably because I am both lazy, and carry almost no particular weight in significance of celebrations. Christmas and Birthdays are just other days for me, whether this is due to lack of religious influence or its down to my upbringing i don't know.

Captain Seafort wrote:

SolkaTruesilver wrote:Going as far as removing christmas trees from public locations. WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS TREE HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH CHRISTIAN RELIGION?! IT'S AS CHRISTIAN AS SANTA CLAUSE!

On the contrary - it's considerably less Christian than Santa Claus.

In our home, at least, the two are quite distinct. My wife's church strongly celebrates the feast day of St. Nicholas - December 6 - with a special mass, a visit from "St. Nicholas" for the children after mass, and a tradition of the children finding small gifts in shoes left out the night before.

Reliant121 wrote:I didn't mean to question its value to the tree, purely that...Personally, I couldn't justify the effort to keep the tree going. This is probably because I am both lazy, and carry almost no particular weight in significance of celebrations. Christmas and Birthdays are just other days for me, whether this is due to lack of religious influence or its down to my upbringing i don't know.

Believe me, I understand your point. But having a real tree seems to be a sort of connection to an ancestral form of celebration, which in my wife's family is a big deal including traditional cooking, etc. It's also become sort of a familial tradition of itself, going to select the tree; waiting to decorate it; etc.

Of course, that only applies if you're into that sort of thing.

Of course

I've been raised into a very...Inactive household. My father has long since done his fair share of travelling, and my mother is petrified of driving up a street she doesn't know let alone go to another county (Don't even mention going abroad) So we don't go on holiday. They have never bothered with big celebrations, Birthday's have gone largely unnoticed for years in my household (baring their 40th birthdays). I don't think I've had a cake since I was...6? maybe 7? Christmas has always been either a do nothing day or a chore, do nothing day if we are at home and a chore if mother makes us go up to Essex.

Mikey wrote:In our home, at least, the two are quite distinct. My wife's church strongly celebrates the feast day of St. Nicholas - December 6 - with a special mass, a visit from "St. Nicholas" for the children after mass, and a tradition of the children finding small gifts in shoes left out the night before.

Nonetheless, one developed from the other, rather than having purely pagan origins as with the trees and the date.