Christmas tree: what is your vote? Real or Artifical? Pros? Cons?

We don't have any Christmas tree farms locally. We'd have to drive about 60 miles to get to one, and they are so relatively new that most of their trees are 4' or shorter. We need a 7-8' tree to accommodate all of our ornaments!
We went to farms when we lived in upstate NY, and nearly froze to death before we found the perfect tree. As we lost feeling in nose, toes, and fingers, our criteria for the perfect tree dropped. It was fun searching, and after we thawed out we usually had a perfect tree!

 

We had a couple years where our live tree was so dry (even with watering) and one year we noticed that it had been spray painted to be greener in color...that was the last time we had a live tree. We had to replace it on the second week into December so we bought an artificial one. Since then we have purchased new artificial trees because they came out with lights already on them...I hated putting lights on, it is so much easier now.

 

I did grow up with fresh cut trees - but that was "back in the day" so-to-speak, when the tree lots tended to be truly local businesses - and they were NOT set up and stocked with trees which had been harvested who-knows-how-long before Thanksgiving, and trucked in from who-knows-how-far-away, so that the needles were already falling off before you even got a chance to choose one.

Aside from that, for all of our years since moving into our compact little beach house (and with the necessity to bring in tropicals each winter), we simply have not had the space for a "traditional" tree - so for the first quite-a-few years we decorated our potted Ficus benjamina, which served nicely - but eventually, it became impossible to keep it's growth in check, so we passed that plant along to friends with a larger home and bought ourselves an artificial "pencil tree", which we can just fit in.

 

Yup we still do a fresh cut tree. We have several places with in a 10 mile radius that grow Christmas trees. But those are always the sheared ones that are so thick with branches that you can not find a place to hang an ornament on. My hubby and I like natural grow Christmas trees with a lot of space between the branch sets.
We were thrilled to find an older couple about 8 miles from our home that grows what I would call natural looking Christmas trees. No shaping is done what so ever. They are wonderful. We got a 7ft tree for only $15.00 dollars. Our trees are getting shorter as the years go by. We had thought of getting a fake one but then we wouldn't be supporting our local economy. So fresh cut for sure!