Cutting your own tree can be a fun activity for the family and can help guarantee that you’ll get the freshest tree possible. RELATED STORIES Types of Christmas Trees

A Christmas tree is very often the most important element in a home’s holiday decorating scheme, and a really impressive tree can go a long way towards creating that warm, inviting and festive mood that makes the holidays so special. To make sure that your tree stays fresh and full through the season, as opposed to drying out and dropping needles, you’ll need to know how to choose a healthy tree.

Missouri native Bud Lyon was working for Look Magazine when he settled in Southern California in 1962. Two years later he saw his first Christmas tree farm, and by 1977 it became his full-time vocation. During the past 25 years Lyon has been active with both the California Christmas Tree Association and the National Christmas Tree Association, holding numerous top-level positions in both groups. Here he offers tips for choosing a fresh Christmas tree that will last through the holiday season:

• Needles. Early in the buying season, most of the cut trees should be fresh and healthy, but Lyon recommends trying the needle test to make sure. Take a needle and bend it over with your fingers. If it snaps like crisp celery, you have a very fresh tree.

• Choose and cut. To absolutely guarantee freshness, Lyon suggests heading out to a tree farm and cutting your own. It’s a great way to spend a holiday morning or afternoon with the family, wandering in search of the perfect tree and then cutting it down with a saw.

• A fresh cut. Once you get the tree home, you will have to put a fresh cut on it. When a tree is cut down, sap often clogs up the pores at the bottom of the trunk, so that the tree has difficulty drawing water. By cutting a little more off the bottom, you’ll be opening up the pores so they will drink again.

• Water. To keep your tree from drying out, becoming brittle and dropping needles, you’ll have to put it in a water stand. Choose a stand that can hold at least a gallon of water and make sure to keep that reservoir full as long as you keep the tree. Now that the tree is set up and watered, all you have to is decorate it and enjoy its beauty.