Christmas tree time

Issues:
Live or artificial?  Mrs. Phactor is no neutral on this score it must be a live tree, abeit one soon to die.
It's the sense of it, the presence of the foliage, the aroma.
Fir or pine: Again no neutrality; it will be fir, it's the aroma.  The preferred tree is a balsam, but as nice ones have proven so hard to find in recent years, Fraser it will be.
Sooner vs. later:  Sooner! Buy as soon as trees arrive in your area and put their trunks in a bucket of water in a cool place, they don't get any fresher. Our tree will be bought tomorrow & placed in water until the house is ready for it's installation. Ours stays in the unheated garage.  Sometimes the tree gets a spray of wiltproof, ask for it by name, but timing on this is tricky. This year it was too warm to spray rhododendrons & other evergreen dicots before this.  Often it then gets too cold. Tomorrow may be mild enough to do them all.  Wreaths do better with a dunking in water over night and then wilt -proofed.  Just wish the bloody stuff wasn't so expensive. 
Is this  a green crop?  Yes, the trees are a crop and its sustainable. Trees are not being cut in the wild unless your name is Arlan (a Texan) and you like field grown Junipers, red cedars. They do smell good too, but oh do prickly. 
How do you keep cats out of your tree?  How do you keep cats from doing anything? Our current kitty-girls find the trees interesting, but they don't try climbing them. Drinking from the tree stand's water is more interesting, but still as an old practice indestructible ornaments including some bells get hung on the lowest branches just in case, and any ornament that looks too much like a kitty toy must be hidden up high or it becomes a kitty toy.  The young of our two has broken a couple of small ornaments that attracted her attention (making it their fault).