We will be going up into the “nearby” (an hour and a half) national forest and cutting down our own tree.  This in itself astounds some of our friends, as we live in southern New Mexico and they apparently do not believe that we have trees down here. 
We were suppose to go on Sunday after Mass, but the wind was so bad we didn’t go.  Now we are hoping and praying for good weather on Friday so that we can make the trip.  It is such a great tradition!

This sounds a lot like our house. DH’s family always had artificial trees. We’ve had real ever since we’re married and some years we did troop out to the farm (it had to be a bit of a ride to make it “real”)! The kicker was one year when I insisted we bring our saw to cut it. You can guess who had the work of that…until the college kid working at the farm came up with the chain saw! I felt the same way, that the kids needed the experience. In our current house, we’re lucky that there is a small tree farm literally right around the corner! So we get to compromise - we walk the fields and pick a real one, but it’s close and we let the guy with the chain saw come chop it down.
The problem we have now is that everyone gets their tree so early, that we have little left to pick from. We always get our tree later than most—to be closer to Christmas and so it lasts well to Epiphany. But they start selling Thanksgiving weekend and we see them up in windows that weekend.

I would totally go for a “real” Christmas tree…I loved going out to hunt for one with my friends or extended family members, but the smell of a real tree in a small space like a house makes me sick. :-( So artificial trees all the way!

This reminds me of childhood camping vs Parenthood camping. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Real tree—big box store. We LOVE tree farms but there isn’t one close to our new town.

Real tree…we hike out on a friend’s wooded property in the next county & husband cuts the tree down with a hand saw…eldest son hangs the lights on the tree…middle 4 children hang ornaments…mom & baby sit back & enjoy!  :o)

My father grew up in a small apartment in the Bronx.  At Christmastime, parents would purchase real trees trucked in to the city & store them on the roof of the apartment building.  After returning from midnight Mass & sending the little ones off to bed, parents would bring the tree down in to the apartment & decorate it.  What a wonderful surprise this was for my father as a child!

Our trip to get a tree turned into a 4 hour evolution as I wrote about here http://nofightingnobiting.blogspot.com/2008/12/three-stooges-go-shopping.html

With 5 kids needing hats, coats, mittens it would have been bad enough, but then to forget the checkbook?

I have loved going out and picking out and cutting trees with our kids.  It wasn’t until several years ago that I realized how much dh DISLIKES it-probably because he did most of the work.  So, as a gift to him, we went artificial a couple years ago.  It’s ok…..  Maybe if I hadn’t been quite so particular about the tree, dragging frozen husband and small children back n forth in freezing cold looking for the perfect tree only to get home and find out it either had a crooked trunk, too big a base, something that made it difficult to keep upright in a stand.  Anyone else tie their Christmas trees up?  Nail stand to the floor?? 

Growing up, our tree was always put up on Christmas Eve. We’d cut it the weekend before, but it was in the stand, sprayed with the homemade fire retardant, strung with lights, and decorated on Christmas Eve afternoon/evening. But Santa always added the tinsel. So, even though we’d helped decorate it, it looked completely different in the morning with the lights shimmering on the tinsel.
As I got older, I saw how much stress this added to Christmas Eve—after all, we still had to eat and get to Mass! Once we were dating, my (now) dh thought this was crazy—with my parents getting tense and stressed.
So since we’re married we put up our tree usually the weekend before Christmas. As I mentioned above, it’s a lot later than anyone around us. Our kids are getting impatient. But we try to focus on Advent celebrations. We also explain that we want our tree to last longer for the whole Christmas season, instead of being dried out and on the trash heap by January 2nd!

Theresia,
YES…we tie the tree trunk to two nails attached to widow frames with a thin copper wire.  Not taking any chances over here with lots of little people around!  I remember well the story my parents told of my older brother pulling over a Christmas tree on to himself (fortunately he was not injured) at a Christmas party they once attended.  We have friends whose cat likes to climb the tree & nap in the branches - their tree is one of those artificial kinds that plays music & rotates on its base!  Well, with the cat in there, it sometimes wiggles a bit, too!

I remember each year of childhood that the anticipation of picking a tree far surpassed the actual experience of getting a tree! I remember hours of being cold, wet, tired, hungry—nothing like the merry ideals my friends had—to say nothing of the struggle to get the tree tied on top of the station wagon and home in one piece.  After ten years of misery, we started going to Home Depot and saving 1) money, 2) time, and 3) family harmony.

Decorating the tree, however, has always figured prominently in my good Christmas memories. Once we gave up on the “go tramping through the forest to get a perfect tree” idea, the entire process of the Christmas Tree became wonderful.

We haven’t had a fresh tree in years and I miss it!  Next year I plan for us to go to a tree farm and cut one down…I’m sure I’ll be well acquainted with the problems Danielle numbered.~smiles~

My childhood memories are the same as Meg’s… COLD, COLD, COLD, tired, and hungry and everyone was tired of arguments (which tree was better, who got the window seat, etc.)  DH and I have only had one real Christmas tree (1st yr of marriage) and have done artificial ever since - DH didn’t like the mess of needles and pine sap. Which turned out to be a blessing since 2nd daughter is allergic to certain pines.

This past Sunday, we decided to take our four year old with us to pick out a tree from a local lot (we ended up getting it from the Boy Scouts), leaving her two older sisters and her younger twin siblings at home with my mom.  We figured this was a good opportunity to get some time with just her.  The alternate activity for those staying home was to decorate a gingerbread house.  This morning when she woke up, our four year old asked me “why did I have to go with you and Daddy to pick out the tree?  I wanted to stay home and decorate the gingerbread house.”  After discussion with the 8 year old, it was decided among the children that next year mom and dad could go by themselves to get the tree so everyone could stay with Nana and decorate gingerbread houses.  A new family tradition is born!!!!  And I am confident that our 4 year old is just fine with the amount of individual attention she gets from mom and dad on a daily basis!