The biggest advantage to a live Christmas tree is being able to waltz in your front door, breathe deeply and inhale the delightful, festive smell of pine that no doubt prepares you for the holiday season.

Of course, if this is your only deterrent from an artificial tree, I have got some great news for you. A plethora of evergreen-scented candles exist. Congrats. You can buy your very own Christmas smell, without even having to put up with a real tree. And while your options are fairly limited as far as Christmas trees go —you get pine or fir — candles are not. Yankee Candle alone offers 17 different Christmas scents. Yes, look at that, you get to choose, and you don’t even have to choose which beautiful tree gets chopped down that day.

Call me a tree-hugger, but I just can’t get behind needlessly cutting down a tree solely to stay in your house for a few weeks. It may have a certain aesthetic, but not one worth the environmental impacts. It merely doesn’t seem fair.

Now, before you deem me a Scrooge, I love Christmas. This is a holiday distinct from others, always encouraging family, joy and beautiful light displays. I love Christmas trees and Christmas lights and Christmas ornaments. I just love all those things on an artificial tree.

Artificial trees offer all benefits without any of the trade-offs. Live Christmas trees are fire hazards. Live Christmas trees’ needles fall all over your floor. Live Christmas trees have to be watered constantly. Live Christmas trees cost more.

The Christmas season can already be high-maintenance without the added task of finding and housing a real Christmas tree. You don’t need the stress of a live Christmas tree; with an artificial tree, you don’t need to fret about the entirety of your house catching on fire or trekking out with the family to find a tree no one will be able to agree on anyway or paying ever-growing amounts of money for a tree year after year.

And what are you supposed to do with the tree once you have it? My car, along with many others’, just doesn’t have the roof capacity to transport a whole tree.

Even if you are able to magically get it home, how do you intend to move it into your house? Or whichever room you display your tree in?

It’s much easier to be able to assemble your own tree, segment by segment, and avoid the needles along the way. Also, the artificial tree has two stages of maintenance: putting it up and taking it down. There is no need to worry about your Christmas tree making a mess in your living room. The hardest part of the entire process is probably reaching up to put the topper on.

Not to mention, when your favorite pet climbs up into the Christmas tree, they don’t emerge covered in needles. Less time spent cleaning your pet equals more time drinking hot chocolate and watching “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” for the 16th time.

Artificial trees also allow you to avoid tiny woodland creatures in your house, per the squirrel in the tree of the classic “Christmas Vacation.”

The fact of the matter is you can use the artificial tree more than one year. When Christmas ends, instead of throwing your beloved tree out on the curb, you can lovingly pack it away in a box and store it until next year. Then, you can take it out again and redecorate just like the years before. Artificial trees have even been known to last 17 years, much longer than the one-year life span of a real tree that will probably be dead by the end of the holiday season, not to mention by next Christmas.

With artificial trees, you can reflect your personality. Don’t like the classic green? You can buy trees in almost every color, from white to bright pink.

It’s simply more convenient. And if the argument is that live Christmas trees are traditional, so can be artificial trees. Climbing up the ladder to the attic to retrieve your Christmas tree can be the same as a trip to the local Christmas tree farm. Either way you get to decorate with your family, blaring your favorite Christmas tunes and rocking around the Christmas tree.

This Christmas, let the blistering cold winds stay outside and forgo the real Christmas tree. Instead, stay inside and decorate your artificial tree with your friends and family. Take part in a lovely tradition, but don’t waste time coordinating a time to visit a Christnmas tree farm, transportation and bringing in the tree. Go artificial, and spend your time enjoying the season.