My favorite tree was a concolor fir a friend got me one year when she came to visit. It was soft and blue and smelled like oranges. I have never seen one for sale.

Frasier, douglas, noble fir and some pine are readily available here. We always have an unshaped (unsheared) noble. Sheared, they are too dense to best display my collection of pear ornaments. For many years we had a noble fir plantation available to us where we could go and cut our own. We still cut our own but more recently its been at U-cut farms and finding one that doesn't tightly shear the trees is becoming more difficult. I have a few on the hill behind our house, quite young. I may have to plant some more, grow our own ;0)

The one we bought yesterday is a Frasier fir. Since there were almost no trees left (he told us there is a shortage this year, especially in the bigger ones), I can’t say if they had other ones before. Don’t think so from previous years.

morz, I have two blue spruce left in my yard. They just don’t do very well here (the 2 bigger about 15 feet tall ones died last Summer). One of the ones left always gets some lights for Christmas.

There are some ugly sheared Douglas firs offered still, but noble fir seems to be the most common by far. The lots usually have some Grands, but not many. The newest popular offering is the Nordmann firs from HD. We've been buying those for about 12 years now. I develop serious lung issues when Nobles start to dry, but the Nordmann's do not bother me unless it is the rare year when the tree is not as fresh. Pines only seem to be offered in live tree lots (not many of those here). Potted offerings can be anything, even species doomed to die in our area.

As a child in central NYS, all I remember is us having beautiful, fragrant Balsam firs. I've never been a fan of Scots pines or any pine as an Xmas tree, as the needles are too long. Frasers have become ubiquitous, but they are hard to beat.

We've been putting up three trees outside in our front yard to light up and decorate; it's pretty easy to find three tallish Fraser firs that look like they belong together.

I love the juniper trees (Eastern Redcedar) and a friend always lets us cut one down from his property for our screened in back porch. They multiply like rabbits on old pasture land.

I'm near Portland Oregon and there are dozens of tree farms in my county as we supply the country and even overseas. We buy noble fir. They last for a very long time and drop very few needles. The branches aren't too dense to hang larger ornaments. I need strong, separated branches because I use the old screw-in bulbs and bubble lights.

I also see Douglas fir and Grand fir. We used to buy Doug fir when we lived in CA. They were shipped down from Oregon, not u-cut.

• A Frasir fir from my county is in the Blue Room at the White House.

• North Carolina has approximately 1,300 growers producing Fraser Fir Christmas trees on an estimated 40,000 acres.

• Fraser fir represents over 99.4% of all species grown in North Carolina.

• Blue spruce used to be popular here. I remember having White pine a few times. Lots of tree farms around here.

I remember we got a long needled tree one year (Scotch pine, maybe?) when I was a teenager and in charge of housework. It looked beautiful, but the needles couldn't be vacuumed (they jammed in the hose) and I remember picking them up off the rug on my hands and knees for what seemed like hours. The next year we went back to short needled.

My tree came from N.C. and is a Fraser fir. I don't like the fact that all the tree farms are now cutting the branches to make them look perfect. If I wanted a "perfect" tree, I would get an artificial one!

California has my all time favorite, the Noble fir, here in Michigan, we get the Frasier which is pretty much the go to for this area. Through the years, I’ve had lots of different kinds of trees, too many to remember the names, but the one thing that always sticks out, is that once decorated they were all beautiful. Kind of reminds me of people, it doesn’t matter what kind of culture one is, there is beauty in all of us.

Yes, I remember the old Spruce, then Douglas, then Scotch Pine, and now Fraser. Around here, Fraser firs are the only thing available. But when we lived in CA, we had Noble firs and oh my - they just take your breath away! I'd kill for one of these again!

If you put the pine tree in a container with Scotch, you could possibly call it a Scotch pine. I know Scottish people do not like being called Scotch.

I've never bought a Christmas tree, but when I was small, my father would cut down a cedar tree (central Texas), and he was the only person in the family who was not allergic to cedar, and so no one but him could go in the room with the tree. I much prefer artificial trees. I feel sad for live trees that are cut down and thrown away, especially when I see the dead trees. I know they are grown for that purpose, but it still makes me sad.

I like like the smell of pine, however.

I'm in Norcal, I love a Silvertip, California red fir, Abies magnifica. It has a lot of space between limbs for ornaments. Some think it looks a bit "Charlie Brown Christmas tree" but I love them.

In the land of Douglas Firs people aren't crazy about them because they shed so badly but for years it was what was on offer. There are lots of new kinds of hybrid true firs that hang on to their needles and smell really good and are fuller than natural Grands and Nobles. We get a kind called a Turkish fir or something like that. The most wonderful tree I ever had was a Pinyon pine. The smell was to die for.