The advantage of buying a living tree is that you can afterwards plant it in your garden, if the garden is large enough. Otherwise plant it in a large tub or half barrel and it will live for a number of years and be avilable for re-use next christmas. In my garden I have two trees which have been planted in the ground (there were three but one never really took root) and one in a large tub. Of course the tub idea isn't really suitable if the tree is a six or eight footer to start with! Mine has sat in its tub for ten years and is still alive, if rather stunted. I feel a bit sorry for it, but we've planted a number of fruit trees and the garden now has no space for another conifer.
This photograph of a Norway Spruce, the common or garden Christmas tree, is by Neil Madisen. His website gives as much information as anyone is likely to need about their tree.
http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/s2009/madisen_neil/
Neil's photograph shows what is, for me, the first of two advantages of planting one in the garden. It is a very attractive tree, with its conical form, deep, rich green colouring and elegantly curving branches. The second advantage is the wildlife it can attract. If I lived firther north in the UK I would have red squirrels, but they don't survive any more in darkest Kirklees, so we have to put up with the large, muscular greys, whose acrobatics are highly entertaining, until they chew holes in yet another peanut feeder.
The other attraction is the birds. In a half hour period today I saw a blackbird, two bullfinch, a number of blue tits, great tits, coal tits and long tailed tits, (is there a collective noun for tits..?) wood pigeons, a dunnock, a robin, nuthatch, a magpie and a tiny goldcrest, the smallest native british bird. Not bad for a back garden in a Barratt housing estate and having a diversity of foliage for birds to rummage around in is the attraction.
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