It’s no secret that at Pines & Co we only deal in premium grade Nordmann Firs – beautiful Christmas trees sustainably grown in the rolling foothills of county Wicklow. While we know there might be a time and a place for a plastic Christmas tree (in a Lego set perhaps?) they’re not something we’d recommend for those of you that take your environmental responsibilities seriously and like to support your local farming community.
With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of 5 times artificial Christmas trees were almost as good as the real thing but ultimately didn’t quite butter the proverbial festive parsnip – Enjoy!
1. First up we have a piece by the controversial American artist Paul McCarthy who managed to scandalise Parisian society in 2014 with this curiously shaped green sculpture. The piece – simply titled ‘Tree’ – was initally showcased outside the Ritz hotel before being promptly vandalised and subsequently removed.
2. In December 2012, officials in the Belgian capital of Brussels experimented with this abstract-style sculpture in place of their city’s traditional Christmas tree. They choose not to reuse it the following year after locals pointed out it looked like a giant ‘pharmacy sign’.
3. Back in December 2018, Melania Trump unveiled the White House’s new look Christmas decor, featuring these artificial cone-shaped crimson trees which were quickly ridiculed online as resembling car-wash brushes or the handmaids that feature in Margaret Atwood’s bestselling novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.
4. Installed in December 2013 in the atrium of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, this 24-foot-tall Christmas tree is in fact a hologram. Pretty cool perhaps, but it’s just not going to do it for those of you that love the wonderfully fragrant scent of a freshly cut pine!
5. And finally, last year security staff at Vilnius Airport in Lithuania created this unique Christmas tree out of all the prohibited items they’d confiscated from travellers over the past 12 months. We say top marks for creativity, but a tree made primarily out of cheese knives and scissors is probably not the ideal option for those of you with young children in the house!
Keep it real this year with a sustainably grown Pines & Co Christmas tree!
