This year I cut a small tree that our son had planted in the early 90's. The trees are dying because they are not disease resistant, so this year it is a memory tree in his honor. Totally forgot how messy a real tree is, back to my artificial one next year. Real tree will not hold my ornaments like the artificial one, only put special memory decorations on for DH and son. I also do the LED lights, always color ones and had to put my bubblers in a piece of wood to display them this year.