I grew up in the woods, on a small island in Puget Sound. The nearest town dubbed itself “The Christmas Tree Capital of the World”. I don’t know how true that was, but I do know that Christmas Trees and wreaths were big business.
The bridge to the island I grew up on
So, after having said that, do you think that we used a fake tree? I would have felt a traitor. 
We always had a real tree. Always. Sure, they can be a little messy with the needles falling off and such, but nothing beats the smell of a real tree. It fills the house.
In my entire life, I have only done a fake tree one year – while Andy was deployed in Iraq. The thought of getting the tree home and into a stand when it was negative 20 degrees out (with 5 little kids in tow) didn’t appeal to me. I cheated and bought a cheap tree-in-a-box. I regretted it. It just didn’t feel very Christmasy without it – or without him. It was a fake Christmas.
When I was growing up, sometimes we would just go out back and get a tree and other times we’d go to a Christmas Tree farm down the road. We normally didn’t get our tree until about 2 weeks before Christmas – usually just after my sister’s birthday.
I broke from tradition this year though. We put our tree up this past weekend. Here is my youngest daughter, who got the honors of putting the star on this year.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any stories of my ancestors’ Christmas Tree traditions. I wish that I did!
