[LabRat]

As a kid, had a fake. Mom has a series of pictures with us kids standing in front of it paritally put up, showing how much taller we are every year. Eventually that one bit the dust, then we got real ones.

When Red and I were first married, we used his grandmothers old fake tree. Think wooden stick with 25-30 wire branches sticking out. You could see right through that thing no matter how hard you tried to fluff up the branches. It was so bad, it was awesome. Used that for a few years, then when we could afford it, bought a nice new fake tree that we've had for 5 or 6 years now.

Since we are gone for a significant portion of Christmas, it would be silly to have a real tree. No one to take care of it. We have and frequently use our real wood fireplace in the room where we put it up. A real tree would be an honest fire hazard. No disposal issues when we are done with it except putting it all back in the origianl box. That in itself is a great brain teaser and excuse to use duct tape. It has totally paid for itself, plus we can garage sale it when we are done with it.