I have a small (~4') artificial tree in my apartment, and a larger one (~7') in the house. I can't have a real tree because someone's allergic to the pollen it would give off, or something like that. The tree in the house is being a PitA this year, though. About half of the lights decided to give up on us, and it would cost so much to replace the bulbs and wiring that we're unravelling all of the pre-strung lights, and will just decorate it as if it's a real tree, once that's done, probably with LEDs. It's taking forever though. We probably wouldn't bother if it wasn't such a nice artificial tree.
I would love to have a real tree. I miss it. Clean-up is actually pretty easy if you put it 'inside'/on top of an opened tree-size garbage bag, and then hide that under a tree skirt. At the end of the season, you move the skirt, and just pull the bag up over the tree. Of course, you can always buy a live, plantable one, but from what I've seen, those cost a bunch, especially if they're full-sized (6+'), and then you really have to take care of it, not to mention planting it later.
As for cats, we have two in our apartment, and two in the house. In the house, one of the cats likes to climb into the tree, but she's usually very, very careful about it. She barely even makes the ornaments move. The other cat.. well, we'll see (he's new this year).
In our apartment, with the small tree, the one cat (also new this year) just kind of rubs her face on the branches, and the other cat mostly ignores it. I know some cats are more crazy about having a tree up, so if you're worried about it, you could always get one and hang unbreakable ornaments on it. We started with unbreakables just to see how our new cat would react, and have been layering our other ornaments onto it as time goes by. It also helps if the ornaments at the bottom of the tree are all unbreakable, just for 'security,' in case they decide they want to play with something shiny after all. We also tied the tree to the table it's sitting on, just in case. :p As long as you don't hang things that your cat associates with being a toy (for us that means tassel things, tinsel, etc.), it should be fine. You might get some reactions like this if they've never seen a tree before, so just watch them for the first bit after putting it up. ;D (This is, of course, assuming you do want a tree up... heheh.)
Out of curiousity, do you guys decorate your trees to be pretty, or to use ornaments that have sentimental meaning to you? (Or both? Neither? Don't care?) I'm finding it interesting to decorate with my SO because his Christmas traditions/memories and mine are very different, which has got me thinking about that. It's kind of cool to realize why a tradition is so important to you, or even that it is important. :3
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