Real tree or not, does it depend on your childhood?

As a child we always got sent a tree from the country estate where my sister brother and cousin were evacuated during the war. (They were very lucky there!) My husband a Scot doesn't really have that Christmas tradition as a background but he has embraced everything Christmassy since he moved to England. We have had a real tree -for all of our nearly 50years of married life. When we didn't have a car we carried it home home from the greengrocer between us, later it went on the pram. When they were older our children loved going to the forest or our local stately home to buy the tree, choosing exactly the right one was part of the ritual. Even when we were really hard up we always put aside money for a real tree even though some years it was a very small one. For the last 3 years we have bought one from ALDI, beautiful fresh Nordmans (£14.99 this year.) No one is coming this year because of the pandemic but we have still bought a tree. It'll be featured on our Zoom family Christmas meeting.

When I was in hospital 41yrs ago having given birth to our 1st son, I arrived home after the 7 day confinement to an artificial tree, decorated with our Christmas baubles. Throughout my childhood and up until our son was born we had always had a real tree.
However, the tree was beautifully shaped and a decent height. 48yrs later we still have, and still use the tree, decorating with the decorations bought in Germany 48yrs ago.

We always had a real tree when we were children and I usually plan to have one each Christmas but I have a couple of artificial ones as well. I bought a pre-lit, bare branch style one in a garden centre sale one year but the lights are so bright we couldn't be in the same room as it! That one works OK in the conservatory where we can see it through glass without being dazzled! This year I've had my other artificial one up since the 1st of the month. We needed the cheerful lights really early this year and I don't think a real one would do well for so long with the central heating blasting away for a month. The photo in daylight doesn't do justice to the megawatt brightness of the lights.

I hought I'd commented on this thread but there was another one recently
www.gransnet.com/forums/christmas/1287759-Real-or-fake?

You'll find more interesting stories there. (I mean additional stories, not "ones that are more interesting")

I'm still chuckling over 'powered harps'.

Grandma70s

I don’t see the point of a fake tree. It’s the living green in midwinter that is significant. From childhood onwards I’ve always had real ones, and real holly. I can’t manage a real tree now, so I won’t have a tree at all. Nobody is visiting because of the virus, so no-one will know!

Basically the point for me is there are expectations from first kids then grandkids that there will be at least some sort of tree. Left to myself I'd have none, and I certainly don't want the hassle to cleaning up needles and disposing of it. This year there will be none, as we're not seeing anyone

Not everyone bothers with a tree. My sister has what I can only describe as twigs with lights and other lights around the room and in vases. They look lovely and she switches them on all through the winter.

I remember asking my grandma about her childhood Christmases. They lived very rural and gathered holly and ivy from the woods. They didn't have a tree but hung a bare branch from the ceiling. They decorated that with fir cones, ribbons and sweet things. Her favourite was a pink sugar pig. They had stockings (their own socks) which appeared on Christmas morning filled with a new penny, an apple, an orange, nuts, sugar mice and pigs. If they had a toy it was handmade.

That’s exactly what used to be in my stocking, Mamardoit, and I carried on the tradition with my own children. Though I always had a big toy and annuals as well and my children had slightly more.