Pine Needles or Plastic...

This post is a bit after the holidays but I just started my blog...

All of my life, we've always had a real Christmas tree. I remember saying as a young adult that, when I got older, I'd always have a real tree and continue on the tradition... Well, I've since changed my mind.

Last year was our first Christmas together and my DH (darling husband) hadn't had a Christmas tree in a while. One chilly night, we got in the SUV and drove to a local nursery. We shook and analyzed every tree. We finally picked out one. They loaded it on top of our vehicle and we took it home. After hours of putting it up, it looked beautiful. We were so excited. Until the next day when all of the pine needles began falling off. It wasn't taking on any water and by the time we knew that, it was too late. We couldn't take everything off, recut the bottom, and then put all of the decorations back on. I mean, it took hours of crawling around on the floor to try to get the darn thing STRAIGHT! So once the time came, we took it down and spent a fair amount of time vacuuming the dead needles out of the carpet.

Fast forward to this year. After such a disappointment last year, I secretly pondered getting an artificial tree. Financially, it makes sense. Environmentally, it makes even more sense. But I remembered the artificial trees from the 1970's and 1980's. Back then, they would have NEVER been mistaken for a real tree! So we went to Garden Ridge and some other stores to take a gander. My DH was all for it because his memory of our first Christmas together wasn't of the gorgeous tree and the wonderful smell filling the house... It was of us vacuuming up the dead pine needles.

Well, artificial trees have come a long way from when I was a kid. Back then they were awful which is partially why I VOWED to never have one! Now I had to reconsider... Because we shopped later in December, we found a great deal at Garden Ridge. The tree was originally $249 and it was on sale for $99!! OMG! What a great find! We bought it immediately and it took us about 15 minutes to put it up and decorate it. And it looked so pretty. We didn't have to battle putting on the lights. It came lit up already! There would be no injuries suffered while trying to remove the ornaments and getting a pine needle shoved up my nail bed. It was a wonderful experience for our first MARRIED Christmas! Hats off to whoever invented the 'new and improved' artificial Christmas trees! I'm sure that when we have a family, there will be times we will go to a tree farm and cut our own tree, just so our kids can experience it. But in the meantime, this tree will do just fine...

(The first photo is without the star topper and our tree skirt so you can tell it isn't a real tree by the tell-tale metal bottom. The second photos is with the new star and our tree skirt. The pic is a little blurry but you get the gist... I think it turned out great!)