Fake vs. Real Christmas Trees

Andy Cheek, staff writer|December 6, 2021

Christmas rolls around once a year and each year the controversial topic of fake versus real Christmas trees comes up.

Personally, I love real Christmas trees. I enjoy the smell of them, and the adventure of finding the “perfect” tree. Some years, my family will travel all over middle Georgia to find the “perfect” Christmas tree. My family usually buys our Christmas tree at a Christmas tree lot on Forsyth road next to Arby’s but this year we got our tree from a market over on Bass road because most of the Christmas trees at the first Christmas tree lot were sold.

I love the adventure of finding the “perfect” Christmas tree. For my family, a “perfect” Christmas tree has a triangular shape with a wide base and thin top. Approximately nine feet tall with very strong branches and full of branches without gaps is also a necessity. My family has a lot of large ornaments so we need our tree to have very sturdy branches to hold the heavy ornaments.

I love living trees because they smell good and they fill a room with a holiday aroma.

One year we ended up buying three Christmas trees. The first tree we bought was from Ace Hardware on Forsyth Road. It was dead when we bought it, so we sent it back and got a refund. The second one we bought was from a Country Oaks Farm and Pet Supply in Bolingbroke and once it was at home with ornaments and lights on it my brother knocked the tree over and the stem cracked. Then the third one that we also bought from the Country Oaks was the one we kept up for the rest of the Christmas season. The final tree we bought that year was not the prettiest; it was really thin and tall, and did not have a lot of strong branches. Definitely not my favorite of our Christmas trees.

Though there are some struggles in getting, keeping alive, and being satisfied with an alive Christmas tree I still prefer a living Christmas tree over a fake Christmas tree. I love living trees because they smell good and they fill a room with a holiday aroma.

As well as biologically, the trees are helping the environment as well. As the tree released oxygen it also absorbed carbon dioxide which is what we breathe in and out. Not only that, but at the end of the Christmas season lumber mills will use the dried dead Christmas trees for wood chips, plywood, and compost which keeps these mills from cutting down other forests.