Artificial diamonds, though nearly indistinguishable from real ones, go for between 20 and 40% less. Likewise, while offering a myriad of advantages over real ones, artificial trees are often overlooked for some abstract lack of authenticity. Fake Christmas trees are easier to set up, require less maintenance and save money in the long run.

Artificial trees don’t cause allergies or floor stains, and their needles are less likely to scatter on your floor. They can be reused yearly and don’t need to be watered or kept up in any way.

Don’t starve yourself of convenience in the name of vague callbacks to childhood Christmas. Most of your time with a real Christmas tree will be spent sweeping up needles and readjusting the stand. With an artificial tree, the focus remains on Christmas, not another holiday chore. 

The Christmas spirit of today isn’t dependent on matching the Christmas of years’ past. Enrich the holiday, not by clinging to arcane traditions, but by spending time with other people and appreciating the time away that the holiday is all about. Real Christmas trees weren’t adopted because they were whimsical and fun, but out of a practical necessity — they didn’t have artificial trees. To save our money and time, we should follow our ancestors’ lead and make liberal use of artificial trees.

Don’t make your home unwelcome to others by storing pine sap in your living room. It’s never been nice to make people feel sick, and it’s even less so now. There’s a good reason why we don’t grow trees inside our homes. They’re too unwieldy to care for adequately and too burdensome to be worth it. 

So rejoice in plastic Christmas. Although it sounds tacky and “fake,” it allows us to focus more on what matters instead of tending to a tree.