THE CHRISTMAS TREE CONSPIRACY

I hadn't really noticed it before, but it is there. It definitely is a thing.

I spotted it first in an article on The Telegraph website.

It said that 'it isn't necessarily a social faux pas these days to put up an artificial Christmas tree'.

We'll get back to that.

The truth is that nobody is sure how this whole thing started. The Romans decorated their temples with fir trees during Saturnalia, Pagans hung up evergreen branches in their homes to remind them of the Spring to come. Then in Scandinavia, people used to hang fir trees upside-down from the ceiling, and bring in plants from the outside in the hope that they would flower at Christmastime.

What we have now is probably a conglomeration of all these lingering traditions, popularised by the Germans, by Queen Victoria, the British Empire, and by extension, half the Western world.

Anyway, essentially, we put up and decorate trees in our houses to celebrate Christmas.

But... real or artificial? It is a decision I have had to face, myself this year for the first time. And it has illuminated something remarkable.

The Telegraph implied a kind of snobbery, didn't it? As though (up to now) you'd have had to be a social loser even to consider a plastic one! I've encountered this. It presents itself as a class distinction all over the place, if you look for it.

It seems as though real trees are found in the homes of people who go for a classic Christmas, in town houses with Georgian windows and fireplaces, or in neat homes with modern minimalist design.

By contrast, on council estates, or in roads like mine, the street is almost blinded by an array of coloured lights and glowing snowmen - and peeking through the flashing frosted windows are the colourful PVC branches of plastic trees.

I'm not knocking either, by the way. I'm just observing.

What I've also noticed, keenly among people I know, is that there is also a kind of reverse snobbery that actually flows in the opposite direction. I had this conversation the other day, with three ladies:

Me: Do you all have Christmas trees? I'm trying to decide where to get one.

Them: Oh yes!

Me: Artificial ones?

Them: Of course!

They looked a little sheepish at the suggestion that anything else would be acceptable. I was intrigued but I didn't push it.

One of them went on to recommend a flashing fibre-optic variety that revolved on a stand.

I am just observing, certainly, but I did say that that probably wasn't for me, thank you.

I also had another long conversation with someone who went over the maths with me and argued, quite sensibly, that if you pack it away properly, a plastic Christmas tree could easily cost you less than a pound per year.

I hadn't decided at that point. But I was intrigued at how different the approach was among people I know. There are others who (privately) scoff at the idea of anything other than a real tree. If you're going to do it, they argue, do it properly.

This brings me on to my quest then - and this is where it gets remarkable; remarkable mostly that I hadn't noticed it before.

You cannot buy an artificial tree that looks like a real one.

Well, you can, but for silly money, but that isn't really what I mean. What I'm talking about is the shape and texture of the thing.

The top-of-the-range, feel-real artificial trees are marvellously conical. In fact, they look exactly like you'd imagine a Christmas tree to look - tall, symmetrical, handsome and fully green, as though they had been freshly plucked from a Norwegian pine forest - like a child's drawing of a Christmas tree.

But real Christmas trees don't look like that, do they? I've seen them, we've all seen them! They're sort of wide and squat. They're sparse of useful upper branches and the trunk sticks out like a needly pole at the top.

None of the artificial trees I've seen look anything like that.

So what's going on? Has the class distinction had an effect on the people who make artificial trees? Is there a bit of a conspiracy? After all, if you could get an artificial tree that looked exactly like (and I mean identical to) a real one, why would anyone go out and buy a live tree at all? The industry would collapse.

And that's why I think the class distinction exists. It keeps the distance between the two encampments wide enough so that people buy real trees rather than fake it. What's more, I found out that it takes three years to grow a fir tree! That means that Christmas 2019 is already sorted in the minds of those tweedy landowners who know they're on to a good thing.

So, what to do. I'd like to exist in the middle of that class gap, if a gap it is.

Unlike my neighbours, I don't think the multi-coloured, fibre-optic, revolving winter-wonderland is my cup of tea. Unlike readers  of The Telegraph, I disagree that artificial is a social faux pas. After all, I grew up with artificial trees, and my parents, who have been married for 48 years, have only ever owned three of them!

Well, I've already decided. And I'm not going to tell you yet. After all, in my opinion it is still far too early to put up my decorations! There is time yet. But that's a whole other debate, isn't it?