In Christmas tree wars, fakes gain ground

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

On Nov. 30, Jason Baer sent out a tweet, or message, on the social networking site Twitter announcing a milestone in his life:

"Broke down & bought a faux Xmas tree. It's nice, and I'm psyched for no needle clean-up, but still a bit apprehensive. Your experiences?"

After 18 years of buying only real trees, Baer, a 39-year old social media and e-mail consultant from Flagstaff, Ariz., decided to invest in an artificial tree for this year.

“I switched teams,” he says, still a tinge of discomfort in his voice. “This year I felt a real tree was a little too much of a hassle.”

Baer was sick of lugging home a tree each year, sick of vacuuming pine needles, and sick of worrying that a tree would spark a fire.

His fear of fire was not unfounded. Two years ago, he missed his town’s tree drop-off date and decided to dispose of the tree himself, in his fireplace.

“I had the tree in my garage and took a chain saw to it to break it down into small pieces so I could burn it in the fireplace,” he recalls. “The only problem, pine needles are way too combustible. There were flames over the mantel, and it was touch and go for a while. I almost burned the house down.”

He describes the fireplace fiasco as one of a series of events that led him to the faux tree altar.

Jason Baer Jason Baer of Flagstaff, Ariz., broke down this year and bought this artificial Christmas tree after 18 years of real trees.

So he went online and bought a $700 artificial tree with the lights already attached and now he’s in Christmas tree nirvana. “It took me 10 minutes to put up the tree,” he says. In the long run, he figures the decision will even save him money.

After he announced his decision Baer conducted a Twitter poll and found that the majority, 17 people, voted for a fake tree, while only eight votes came in for the real variety.

Baer’s informal survey reflects what’s been happening among Christmas tree buyers nationwide in recent years. While real trees are still the favored purchase among consumers, artificial trees are gaining ground.

In 2007, 17.4 million people bought artificial Christmas trees -- a whopping 87 percent jump from the previous year's total of 9.3 million, according to a survey conducted for the National Christmas Tree Association, whose members are farmers and retailers of real trees. Rick Dungey, a spokesman for the association, could not explain the huge jump and said it seemed to be a statistical anomaly, although the margin of error for the survey is only 3.1 percent.

While live trees are still outselling fake ones, with about 31.3 million bought last year, all signs indicate their artificial counterparts are becoming a bigger and bigger piece of the Christmas tree buying pie.

“I can tell you over the last few years we’ve seen a steady increase,” says Jean Niemi, a spokeswoman for Home Depot, referring to artificial tree sales.

Home Depot — among the biggest retailers of real trees, selling about 2 million each season — is still seeing strong sales in live trees, but fake ones are gaining in popularity, Niemi adds. (The retailer would not provide a breakdown of sales so far this year.)

National Tree Co., an artificial tree wholesaler that sells products to major big box stores, has seen a 15 percent increase in sales this holiday season, according to Jeff Bischoff, creative director at the company.

He believes one of the big factors driving sales growth is that fake trees look so much more real today. “In the old days, you could tell right away they were fake, with branches that hooked on,” he explains. “Today they look great.”

Indeed, artificial trees now available are more lifelike, experts say, but there seems to be more behind the trend towards fake trees.

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