DALLAS, Ore. — A battle is being waged for the heart of the American Christmas tree customer, pitting the real evergreen against the once-lowly artificial tree.I've had artificial trees since I was a kid and they technology behind them has really improved. The earliest trees we had as a kid involved a green painted wooden poll with holes drilled in it. Each branch had to be mounted individually according to the color code on the branch and on the poll. It was quite an operation to put it together.
Last year, an estimated 9.3 million artificial trees were sold in the United States, up 2 million from five years ago. And while the real tree harvest was triple that, the numbers are of major concern for growers because artificial trees can be used year after year. It has reached a point where half the trees put up in American households are made of plastic, industry experts say. The rest of the bad news for growers is that it is getting harder to tell which trees are real.
Our current model is 9' tall, slim design to fit the spot in our living room where we have it, and comes in 4 sections plus the stand. It takes about 4 mintues to put it together and it looks great year after year. Not only that, it won't dry out and burn my house down on Christmas Eve. It's also not full of exotic bugs like the tree we got when we were first married and still were buying real trees. When we unwrapped the tree in our little condo we had some of the weirdest looking creatures fly out of it. If there had been a squirrel in there it wouldn't have surprised me a bit.
The Mrs. is still a fan of real trees, so at least once every Christmas we go to a local tree lot and walk around so she can get her annual hit of pine scent...and then we go home without paying $50 for a temporary decoration. It's a beautiful thing.
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