When I was a kid we would go to a tree farms either in Half Moon Bay or the Santa Cruz mountains and cut down our tree. One year we cut a tree that had a family of mice living in it. When we got it home and my dad offloaded it from the roof of the station wagon what seemed like a zillion mice scurried out of the tree. My mom was not a happy camper. I was 17 then and that was the last year we cut down a tree. Since then we have gone artifical and the offical word at my folks place is mom's allergies won't take the real thing. Now that I have a family of my own, I am thinking tree farm starting next year.

Here is a picture of our tree.