re: The whole real Christmas tree thing escapes me. So how does it work?

We always had a real tree growing up... we would go buy a pine tree of some type from the nursery with roots still attached...

It would stay in a big pot/bucket with a tree skirt to hide the bucket during the month and we would water it... after christmas we would plant it.

my parents land has about 15 plus trees along a border that were our christmas trees ... kinda cool to me...