Living in Canada, aka the Great White north; has its advantages. We don’t really get much in the way of hurricanes up here, for example, the healthcare system is pretty decent and we always have access to fresh maple syrup. Christmas trees seem to grow everywhere, at least the fir trees that traditionally fill that role, but trying to buy a premium quality Artificial Christmas Tree was always next to impossible.

That is one of the downsides to living north of the 49th. While American consumers have access to a huge range of products, we’ve always had to make do with a much smaller selection. The Amazon Kindle was available in the US for two years before you could buy one in Canada, for crying out loud. Home decorators have always salivated at the drop dead gorgeous artificial Christmas trees sold by Balsam Hill; NBC’s Today Show is available in Canada, so we could see just how life like the trees are, but that was just a tease because we had been limited to the inferior fake trees sold in the department stores here. Some of them are expensive enough, but they look like something that was state of the art maybe a decade ago.

Every year I coordinate the Christmas decorations at one of Toronto’s most prestigious hotels, and every year as I surveyed the sad trees they dragged out of storage, I would vow that I was going to drive down to the US and pick up a premium California Baby Redwood Artificial Christmas Tree for the lobby. I’d seen one at a US hotel and I didn’t have the slightest clue I was standing beside an Artificial Christmas Tree until I felt the needles. They sure looked like real needles, even when I held a branch right up to my eye; the only giveaway was that they didn’t have that waxy feel and none of them dropped off from the handling. I later found out that this is referred to as True Needle Technology, and it means the trees are an exact replica of different evergreen species. I went back home, walked into Canadian Tire and had to walk out after I’d had a glance at their Artificial Christmas Trees- not even close. Last year, I talked the hotel manager into ordering real Christmas Trees, but that didn’t end well; they were messy, staff forgot to water them and the safety guy had fire concerns.

This year is different, though. Balsam Hill now ships to Canada! The hotel ordered a magnificent 12 foot California Baby Redwood artificial Christmas tree for the lobby, complete with 2,500 clear lights. It is magnificent! And I ordered an artificial 7.5 foot Vermont White Spruce pre-wired with 1,600 clear and color lights along with a matching wreath and garland for my own house. My neighbors were amazed by how realistic my Christmas tree looks and I had to show them the web site to convince them it wasn’t actually real. After that, your simple job is to add some great Christmas gifts like cheap PS3, few nerf guns, etc. and Christmas can start.