christmas trees
 

Now that Christmas is over and we can look back with out pulling our hair out I have a question. Have you ever bought a live tree and had trouble getting it to stand up straight? I bought ont and the bottom of the tree was an S-curve poor DH and DS took it in and uot of the house several times before realizing the problem DH had started to use a few chouise word by this time

We get a real tree every year and no matter how well we check it out....there is usually a problem.....but I've learned to put the tree in the stand and then attach it to the wall....or in my case the window sill with twine or strong string. A tree that has been trimmed will never look the same once it's fallen over....everything looks skewed.

That's the great thing about live trees......if it is perfect it would be artificial:)

Lol. Let me tell you about Christmas trees. I only put up artificial trees now, because it seems impossible to get really fresh live ones down here. But when I was a young pup, I lived in Washington, Mo, and we had trees on land in New Haven. I wanted a REALLY GREAT TREE. So we took the axe and out into the woods we went. The tree I saw that looked PERFECT was really tall, far too tall to fit into anyone's house. But that didn't phase the guys, they just cut off the top 10 feet of it and brought it back. I had picked a gorgeous cedar tree, complete with little berries and even an old bird's nest in it. Lovely tree, perfectly straight trunk, and oh my....the aroma was to die for. We put the tree in a heavy - very heavy stand, after making another fresh cut, and put it up in the living room. Oh, it was just BEAUTIFUL! Sigh. I decorated it with strings of popcorn, cranberries, lovely ornaments, candy canes, lots of lights. Never had there been a prettier tree.

And then, it fell over. Grrrrrr! We righted the tree, cleaned up the mess, fixed the lights, replaced ornaments and candy canes, and ran wire from the tree to the wall to support it. Ah....that fixed it. Yeah, for about a half hour, and then.....it fell over.

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!! The stand it was in was wooden, in a cross shape, big, and no way should that tree have fallen over...and pulled the wires from the wall. We rewired it, cleaned up the mess, fixed the lights, ornaments, more canes.....and stood back and looked at it. And then....we nailed that sucker to the floor, lol. It stood until it was time to come down....and we refinished the floor.

We always had a live tree when first married and when the kids were growing up, so naturally, my daughter thought it was the only way to go. She and her hubby got a live tree several times, and it always ended up producing so much pollen after a couple weeks into the house that her hubby went into sneezing fits. I never had a tree that went into pollinating in my house before so it was a really weird phenomenon to me. But her kids will now grow up with a very nice artificial tree- and a non-sneezing papa, we hope!

Had many with crooked trunks and we even cut our own tree and thought it was fine until we got it home. I remember when I was a child the trees smelled so good. The smell would go all through the house. Don't know why but the last ones we had smelled when we brought them home and then didn't smell at all once they were inside. I was so disappointed we decided on an artificial one and haven't been sorry. Just got a new one this year that is pre-lit and it was a breeze to put up and take down.

When I was a child my G/Father went to the woods and cut the top from a holly tree, it always stood up ,looked good AND when time to go helped light/revive the fire.

Had so much trouble with one tree that I ended up hanging it from the ceiling.

LOL I have used an artificial tree for quite a few years this year went with a real tree it did not tip over but I forgot about all the needles!! When my kids were little we always went to the woods and cut a real tree some were umm interesting!!

We decided to cut a cedar tree one year. We had 10 foot ceilings in an old farm house, our first year in it. We went to the woods and cut a tree much too large for the living room. Got it cut down to where it fit. It took up a large portion of the large living room, but was beautiful. We decorated the tree and it was beautiful. We woke up the next morning to a smell of cat pee. We had a cat, but that would have take about 15 cats. After a few days, the smell went away, but we have stayed away from cedar since then!

When my hubby and I first moved to our 5 acre place (from a row house) we decided to dig up a tree every year and then plant it in the yard after Christmas. The first two years they didn't servive. The next few years we bought one that had the root ball on it. We gave up when they got too expensive. When we look at the ones that did make it it is hard to believe that the thirty or so foot trees were the little 4 footers that were all spruced up in their Christmas finery inside the house. One took so long to really grow that everyone thought it was a miniture Blue Spruce but after 6 years it really got going and is now almost as big as it's brothers! They are georgous and they smelled great when they were in the house. And yes we did find a few bird's nests and even some hibernating insects while they were inside!

I like your philosophy.