We have a plastic tree that isn't too bad... especially as it's already given us 15 Christmas's. But this year I'm thinking of buying a real one... so that the house fills up with the lovely smell of pine. I bought some essential pine oil last year but that didn't "cut it". We always had real trees when i was a kid. We also have high ceilings because this is an older home (I think 12 ft) so a nice big real tree would look lovely.... we also have mainly floorboards and I'm not that precious about the carpet so the pine needles won't bother me too much.