A wonderful kind of artificial trees are the plastic or artificial Christmas trees. Since around 1950 it has been possible to choose between trees from the nature and the far more convenient plastic trees. Today most plastic trees look perfectly natural, but in the beginning the looked very strange. The first plastic Christmas trees were made using the same machinery as people used to make toilet brushes, so it's easy to see why the first plastic trees looked very strange.

The best thing about plastic trees is probably that they do not drop their needles, so there will be no need to clean constantly during the holidays. In addition, most plastic Christmas trees can easily be taken apart and packed away. Thereby it is possible to use the same plastic trees year after year and it is not unheard of the some high quality trees can last twenty years or more.

Safety is another advantage with plastic Christmas trees. We have all heard about tragic disasters where a natural tree catches fire and makes homes burn down on Christmas eve. Plastic trees might be covered with a fire retardant, so they don't catch fire as easily as natural trees and are thereby far more safe.

Finally, there are many different types of plastic Christmas trees available. You can get them in almost any size you want and they can be either natural green, white or wonderfully frosted and flocked.

Personally I prefer the frosted and flocked trees, but most of them look great if you take care and don't by the cheapest trees you can find. As with many other things, the quality of plastic trees follow the price. Don't expect a cheap plastic tree to last forever (and don't expect it to look as good as a more expensive tree – it's not only the quality that follows the price).