People have strong feelings about Christmas trees. Real! Fake! Big! Small! Whatever type of tree it is, there is someone ready to proclaim why theirs is the perfect kind of Christmas tree. The Christmas tree is a shared favorite tradition, and even if you don’t have one in your own home, you’re likely to see all variations of them in public places, from shopping malls to office spaces.

Mr. Wonderful and I fully intended to have a real Christmas tree this year, though we both agreed it would have to be a diminutive “Charlie Brown” tree, to scale with the size of our apartment. (Fake was out, as we have no room to store it. ) Yet, when our last opportunity to get a tree before Christmas rolled around, my car was already so loaded down with things to take to the apartment that there was no way to squeeze a tree in there too without poking the dogs with needled branches.

We weren’t too disappointed, because we knew we would be spending the days surrounding Christmas with my folks, who have a full-scale tree. And a finely decorated tree it was!

For our wedding reception, we used glass cylinders full of red and white ball ornaments  as decoration for the buffet and fireplace mantle. After the wedding, we had all of these ornaments to use for Christmas.  We left one of the cylinders with my parents, who added the balls to their tree. Matt and I have two of the cylinders on our coffee table, which at least gives the place a bit of a festive air, in lieu of a tree.

Despite the benefits of not having a tree, or enjoying someone else’s, I must say that I am at least a little disappointed we didn’t have a tree of our own for our first Christmas. We received three “Our First Christmas Together” ornaments, which I would have loved to hang up, and there were a few ornaments we got together at Disney World last year that I would have hung up as well.

We may have missed our opportunity to get a tree this year, but next year a tree will be high on our priority list.

What are your feelings toward Christmas trees? Do you insist on real? Do you prefer fake? Tabletop or to the ceiling? White lights or multicolored? Coordinated ornaments or a hodgepodge of family ornaments? Leave a comment and tell me about your tree.