Trying to keep the needles on

The presents are unwrapped. The children’s shrieks of delight are just a memory. Now it’s time for another Yuletide tradition: cleaning up the needles that are falling off your Christmas tree.

“I’m not particularly worried about it. … I’ll just sweep it up,” said Lisa Smith-Hansford, of New York, who bought a small tree at a Manhattan sidewalk stand last week. She likes the smell of a real tree, she said, comparing it to comfort food.

But others do mind. Consumers consistently cite messiness as one of the most common reasons they don’t have a real tree, says the National Christmas Tree Association.

Christmas trees: real or fake? When do you take yours down?