Before I start this post, let me just say THESE TREES ARE JUST WRONG!!!! I can’t remember the name of the store, but it was in Texas the first time we were there taking care of my aunt. When I was quite young my folks had a hand me down tree from my grandparent that was silver tinsel and a color wheel. Even as a young child I HATED that tree!
And I love how a neighboring town always does their tree right in the middle of main street. Now on to our trees. How I decorate each year changes based on my mood, weather, where we are living, etc… so it will never be the same twice! 
This is one of those categories that should be easy, but it’s a bit complicated for us. We USUALLY had a REAL tree… until we didn’t. 😀
Several years back hubby’s National Guard unit was put on alert one September and by Thanksgiving they were shipping out to IRAQ. They left sunny southern California and headed to Washington to be integrated into the Army, which for hubby was easy because he had already served in the Army and then joined the National Guard so it was like going home for him.
I was lucky because in the end he was eventually named the Rear Detachment Commander and sent back home (mostly) to man the Armory and guys that remained behind for one reason or another.
But, I digress. While he was gone I needed to put up the tree and just couldn’t talk myself into doing a real tree by myself. So, I purchased a really nice artificial one. I put it up and decorated it that year and the next while he was still deployed. The following year we went back to a real tree. The year after that we moved to the north woods and REALLY enjoyed live trees again for several years.
During that time the artificial tree stayed boxed up in the barn. When we were in Texas after that, live trees were exorbitantly priced so we used the artificial tree again for a couple years. When we came back to the Pacific North West we went back to live trees until the year of the COVID pandemic and the local tree farm closed early leaving us live treeLESS so we pulled out the artificial tree once again.
LOL this is my long winded way of asking you if you can tell the difference between a few of the trees from the past few years? Which ones are real and which ones are artificial? 😀
Live or artificial doesn’t matter to us as much anymore – being decorated with all the sentimental ornaments is what makes either tree special. A LIVE tree smells good, but honestly a nice artificial tree is easier and a whole lot less mess in the long run. We do buy LIVE wreaths for the proch! Sadly, our local tree farm is up for sale (every year) and then to make matters worse, they had a devastating fire this year in the wreath and flocking barmn the day after we bought our wreaths. While whoever buys it will probably keep it as a tree farm, there’s no guarantee it will remain the same as we know it. 🙁
