Artificial Christmas trees don't smell of pine.

Yes, unsurprisingly, artificial Christmas trees don't smell of pine.   For years I would insist on a real tree at home.   As the children grew older my wife asked that the Christmas tree be installed on the 1st of December. 'For the children', she said.   Three weeks of central heating makes a real tree dry out somewhat and despite what people say, placing the tree in a watertight container and topping up with water doesn't make the trees last a lot longer.
 
A dried out tree looks quite sad on Christmas morning.   The only thing that reduces drying out is having hardly any heating in the room in which the tree is placed.   Not usually a viable option unless you want to ensure that everyone wears the dressing gowns and slippers that you bought.  And the night cap.

On the last occasion we had a real tree indoors, I planned ahead.   I had a second tree waiting on standby outside and on Christmas Eve I removed all the decorations from the first tree, cut it up in to pieces ( to avoid needles dropping as I squeezed it through the doorways) and installed and decorated the second tree.   It looked lovely and fresh for Christmas day but I thought "I'm not doing that again!"

The following year we had a very realistic artificial tree but of course there was no pine smell.   The central heating that played a part in the downfall of our earlier Christmases actually now comes to our aid with the artificial tree.   Every year I buy a bunch of pine branches and cut it up in to small sections.   Every couple of days I put a little branch on the radiator and the lovely pine smell radiates throughout the house.   The fragrance doesn't last long, however, and the branches need to be replaced quite frequently.   Extra branches are added just before guests arrive and our artificial tree fools them all!

Above: is it or isn't it?