How Buying a Fake Christmas Tree Saved my Marriage

How Buying a Fake Christmas Tree Saved my Marriage

I’ll admit, I’m being a little tongue in cheek with the title of this post – my marriage wasn’t REALLY on the verge of ending over arguments about a Christmas tree, but things have been a lot more stress-free ever since we made the switch to faux! Before I convinced my husband to come to team fake tree, our annual Christmas tree saga went something like this:

Step one: Drive to Christmas tree lot and argue over which one looks the best.

Step two: Drive home while praying the guy who fastened it to the roof of the car knew what he was doing.

Step three: Haul the monstrosity into the house, attach it to the tree stand, and spend the next hour trying to figure out why it’s not standing straight. No, I think it needs to go a smidge to the left!

Step four: Vacuum the floors.

Step five: Bring the lights down from the attic only to realize half of them no longer work … didn’t we just buy new lights last year?

Step six: Go on a lights run to Target and end up buying 47 other things because who can go to Target and only buy one thing?

Step seven: Let my husband spend an hour putting lights on the tree while I try to avoid nitpicking him on where he decides to place the wires … is it just me or does every branch need to be wrapped with the lights?

Step eight: Start to nitpick.

Step nine: Nitpicking turns to bickering.

Step ten: He gets frustrated and ends up throwing his hands in the air – “Fine, you do it!”

Step eleven: I remove all the lights and redo them while my husband watches football in the other room. How festive!

Step twelve: Vacuum the floors, again.

Step thirteen: Stand back to admire my lit up masterpiece! Five minutes later, some unknown event has caused half the lights to go out.

… I think you get my point.

By the time I got to the fun part of hanging the ornaments on the tree, I’d be exhausted, frustrated, and my hands would be sticky with sap. Bah Humbug! The year that our tree stand malfunctioned and sent our tree crashing to the ground which resulted in the destruction of many heirloom ornaments, I said enough is enough! I presented a very well thought out pros and cons list to my husband that went something like this:JANUARY 2013

That’s a no brainer, right? Can we be real for a minute? Is it just me, or do real Christmas trees not smell THAT good? It’s nothing that a good pine candle won’t fix, and look at all of the other things you’re getting! The pre-lit perk could honestly be the only thing on the pro list and that would be enough for me. The holidays are stressful enough without experiencing the great light fiasco year after year! After some convincing, my husband finally obliged, and we bought a pre-lit fake tree a few years ago. He agrees that it has been the single greatest purchase since we’ve been married! We pull the thing out of the box, put it together, fluff some branches and we’re in business! Not only does it save us time, aggravation, and money, but no ornaments have been sacrificed because of our tree stand … which is a good thing because my two-year-old breaks enough! Now, if only I could convince my husband to do all the Christmas shopping too!

1 COMMENT

  1. Welcome to the pre-lit side! We went with a fake tree years ago for the ecological reasons, and a pine scented candle smells just as good as the real tree, without the watering and endless needles falling! We upgraded to a nicer pre-lit LED tree last year. Magical. Out of the box to fully decorated in an hour with no arguments! I used to eschew the idea of artificial, but we are proud members of team faux for over 10 years now.

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