Pros and Cons of Artificial Christmas Trees

We've talked about how great real trees are and yes, I have mostly trashed the fake ones. Case in point - see my post about Pink Christmas trees. However jaded I may be about plastic knock-offs, I can see certain advantages to them. In the spirit of fairness, I have come up with a personal list of pros and cons of artificial Christmas trees. If you are more open-minded than I am about them, you may have even more for the 'pros' side.


The Pros of Artificial Christmas Trees

• Saves you having to go out to find and purchase the "perfect" real tree
• More economical - buy once, use for many years
• Predictability - you always know how big it will be and what it's going to look like
• No needles to clean up
• No worry about watering
• The cats won't likely climb the trunk
• Easy to get rid of after Christmas, no dragging through the house and out to the curb
• No worry about placing too close to the heat vent because it won't dry out
• You don't have to worry about or buy a safe tree stand
• You can shape and place the branches to sit where you want them
• If you have the room, you can store them decorated for the following year

The Cons of Artificial Christmas Trees

• You must store them properly to keep them clean and uncrushed
• They can be time consuming to assemble
• The branches can get badly bent out of shaped or flattened
• Initial outlay can be costly if you want a very large or spectacular tree
• They don't look smell like a real tree
• The tradition of family outings to get the tree is lost
• You may become bored with the same tree every year
• Cheap artificial trees look very fake - you can usually see through to the centre

Well, there you have it, my personal list of the pros and cons of artificial Christmas trees. I have a feeling that I'll be adding to this list. Meantime, check out a few of the artificial trees that Amazon is offering this year.