We put up our Christmas tree last week. I’m risking blasphemy here, but I like fake Christmas trees better than real ones.

Growing up we always had real Christmas trees. On the day after Thanksgiving we loaded into the truck, drove out to the Christmas tree farm, rode a wagon out to the field and chopped down a real live Christmas tree (after rejecting plenty for being too fat, too thin or too bare).

It’s a fine tradition, but I’m happy with a fake tree. It’s cheaper, you don’t have to pick up all the needles, and you don’t get stabbed by all those needles when you’re putting the ornaments on. Plus we travel so much at Christmas it doesn’t make any sense.

It also seems like a lot of effort to chop down a real tree every year just to put it up in your living room for a month. Real trees can be recycled, but there’s still a lot of energy and effort that goes into that industry. The fake tree can at least be reused every year—and they’re used so infrequently they could easily last 20 or 30 years.

So call me a Scrooge, but I like my fake Christmas tree.

Maybe someday we’ll have a digital Christmas tree and then it’ll be even easier!