Our New Family Room Christmas Tree

The tradition of purchasing a live Christmas tree has now ended for our family. We've had too many years of bad experiences trying to find a tree to continue on.

This is what I posted on FB back in early December...

"Gone are the days of a real tree for me. I am completely done. Too many frustrating years of trying to find the right one. After working on trimming the tree this year and putting up lights and garland (not ornaments yet), my tree has not taken in any water. I've never had this happen. I've had trees die on me earlier than expected, but not from the get go. I just know that Pike's never did a fresh cut on the bottom, even though they "said" they did. It is a pretty tree, but it is going to die soon not drinking water. Doug is not in town this week to help me figure something out, so it will die. We just ordered an artificial tree last night that will be here in a few days. This tree will come down and a new tradition will start. I'm done. I'm getting too old for this crap now. Bad trees. Bad service. I am just done. The tree is pretty for now, but will only be for a few more days. All that work on it for nothing. Thank you to those who suggested other options for real trees, but I'm tapping out now. I hope I will have the same Christmas-y feeling not having a live tree in my house, but I'm ticked and so disappointed right now. Time to move on."

We purchased from Pike's Nursery for years. And now I won't ever buy from them again. I wrote an e-mail to them about my experience and got absolutely no response. Just ignored. Never ever again. Horrible customer service.

We walked into Pike's on Thanksgiving weekend. We like to buy Fraser firs and the Pike's closest location to us had an abysmal selection of them. Very few trees and they looked horrible. So many missing branches. And even looking like that, they were crazy expensive. I even looked into getting a different kind of tree - and anything that looked pretty and decent - the price was absolutely ridiculous.

We then went to a different Pike's location. Bigger selection but still most of them looked horrible.

We didn't get this tree (see below), but this is what we were dealing with...

$155 for THAT. It basically had no branches on the bottom.

But, we ended up really happy because Doug did manage to find a pretty tree amongst the wonky ones...

We know that Pike's always does a fresh cut of the trunk, but we didn't witness them doing it this time. We forgot to bring cash for a tip, so we ran to get some cash quickly and then picked up the tree. Since we had never had an issue before, so we didn't feel uneasy about not witnessing them make a fresh cut.

We brought the tree home and put it in the stand...

We were quite excited because it was really pretty and we felt like we lucked out.

 The next morning I went to check the water level and it did not drink anything. That NEVER happens with a brand new tree. It usually drinks like crazy the first few days.

I tried to convince myself it was a fluke and decided to put the lights and garland on anyway the following day...

Instead of putting ornaments on right away, I held off to see what would happen with the drinking.

Nothing. It still didn't drink.

In the meantime, Doug had to go out of town. There wasn't much I could do because the tree was too heavy to remove by myself. I even tried putting holes in the trunk to make it drink. While Doug was out of town, we decided to buy an artificial tree online. We had been talking about it anyway. We loved our upstairs tree, so we bought the same type tree, just in a bigger size.

Even if the tree not drinking didn't have anything to do with not having a fresh cut, the trees were just bad all around. This proved it.

  Doug came back home and I removed the garland and lights. The needles fell like rain because the tree was already starting to die from not drinking for a week. We stuck in on the side of the house.

 Here is what was left of it...

I cut a couple of non-dead branches off of it and kept those through Christmas. You can see above all the needles that fell.

After a few days of anxiously waiting, the new tree arrived. I was a bit worried it might be too big for the room. It ended up being perfect! The tree is a little too tall for me to put on my normal star, so I went for an angel instead.

The new tree is a newer, upgraded version of our upstairs tree. The lights are super bright and it is so pretty. It has three light settings like our upstairs tree. It is beautiful.

I put on the garland and decorated it and I was so super happy with it. I have like a bazillion ornaments, so I needed a tree that would accommodate that.

Some of my ornaments...

So that is the story. I have to admit that I am happy I don't have to think about looking for a live tree next Christmas. My sweet friend Amy surprised me a candle that smells like a Fraser fir so I don't miss the scent of a live tree in my house. :)

It was a frustrating situation that worked out for the best in the end...