• MSNBC , Friday, December 19, 2008 11:15 AM

In the "Is nothing sacred?" department, Eve Tahmincioglu gives us a story on the Christmas Tree Wars, and the ersatz variety is evidently coming on stronger than ever. There's a long anecdotal lede about a fellow in Arizona who broke down and bought a $700 fake tree with pre-installed lights two years after he almost burned down his house trying to dispose of a spent pine in his fireplace. This chap's own Twitter research found sentiment running 17 - 8 in favor of the fakes.

Big-time data are convincing, too. In 2007, 17.4 million people bought artificial Christmas trees -- an 87% leap from the 9.3 million in 2006, according to the National Christmas Tree Association, whose members are farmers and retailers of real trees. A spokesman for the association says the huge jump seems to be a statistical anomaly, although the margin of error for the survey is only 3.1%.

Live trees are still outselling fake ones, however, with about 31.3 million bought last year. A spokeswoman for Home Depot confirms that the demand for artificial trees is picking up, however. And National Tree Co., an artificial tree wholesaler, says its sales have risen 15% this holiday season.

Read the whole story at MSNBC »