I was wondering about the environmental impact of investing in an artificial christmas tree versus cutting one down every year. This New York Times article says that buying the real thing still has less of an environmental impact. The carbon footprint of a fake tree is much larger than all the trees you cut down over 10 years would ever have.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/business/energy-environment/18tree.html?_r=0