♛You know, it took me some time to embrace having a tree indoors at all, you have to remember that it was immigrants who brought that tradition over to the New World; it was probably the early 1800′s that it was widespread enough that we simply had to have one, too.

Having a living tree indoors, shedding pine needles and sap and possibly serving as a Trojan horse to spiders and such, was not something I wanted! All that kindling, it was the same fire hazard that it is today. But Claudia wanted it, and so we started having them for her. In those early years, we made ornaments by hand to go with those given us as gifts by friends and neighbors: crystals, blown-glass baubles, figurines… Our own handmade ones were always more valuable to us than the finest artisan ones, Louis still has a few of them, and we handle them with great care.

…Got a little distracted there. 

Fake trees were a thing in the mid-1800′s, I recall some that were made with goose feathers dyed green. Other artificial tree methods followed, but we continued with the real thing. The scent of pine was endearing to us by that time.

Currently? I would think that Claudia would lose her shit, as they say, over the myriad synthetic versions of the holiday tree, the LED lighting running cleverly through the branches. 

You can get trees in any color, not just green! 

[X white] [X black]

I also nearly swooned over a tree made entirely of Swarovski crystals:

[X]

So to answer your question, it varies on the year, but I think there’s something to be said for getting an artificial tree that’s flame-resistant, and can be easily recycled after use. There’s something deeply depressing about walking the streets the month following Christmas and seeing all the corpses of trees that were invited into people’s homes, loved briefly, and then tossed out on the curb like so much trash. 

I suppose that puts me on the side of artificial, so there’s your answer.