When I lived in Oregon, every year we'd go cut our own at a U-Cut tree farm the day after Thanksgiving, and we'd not take it down until New Years or the day after. Most of them were 10' plus.The wildest one I had was a sequoia, smelled amazing, and looked awesome, but decorating the tree tore my hands up and left me with a rash for days... We moved to California in 1999 and the stale dead trees on the lots were horrible, I only used once, and they were scary dry. We went fake and that was it... Our first fake tree, a 7' the lights all finally died after last Christmas and I recycled it. The big 10' one is in its box, because I have 7'4" ceilings (grrrr) and cannot put it up...
This year I bought a small Colorado Spruce from Lowes, it is in a 5 gallon pot and we will plant him in the yard after Christmas. It is a cute little bugger, I'll take a pic later and share it.
Be well,
David