The big thing on trees is that the frost sets the needles. So if you buy a tree that was harvested before the first frost it won't last.

If you buy one harvested after frost you don't need water.....

Weird, I know, but we are in Xmas tree harvest land....

SCG

Guess we would never know when it was harvested.
I've been picking up trees too late,..a European thing, most often, trees sit in the lot for weeks with freezing temperatures and low humidity, then drying up, especially here in Alberta. Getting a tree early and bury into the snow should help.

Have hundreds of planted trees I could cut, to me, these are
worth more the $25.00.. and only have about 1/5 of the branches.

I just figure they were never meant to last indoors anyway. We bring the tree in around Dec. 15, and take it out of the house around Jan. 1. By then the needles are drying and dropping, but Christmas is over anyway.

Today the ornaments came down, my wife said that she has a hard time to let it go,...she didn't know I posted this here.
I think my effort paid off to get a longer lasting tree.
This picture from today.

I can understand why you are reluctant to let go of such a beautiful tree.

I noticed that our 'real' tree added humidity to the house, and I imagine lots of good ions went with the water molecules.

Makes me wonder if it wouldn't be healthy to bring living boughs into the house on a regular basis in winter?

Ours was purchased and set up in the house on December 11th and it's still doing well today on Epiphany. The lower tier of branches are dry, but not at all brown or dropping needles on their own. The rest of the tree... you can grab the needles and pull and they won't come off. We cut a good three inches off the base and I sprayed the cut immediately with water so it would stay wet while we got it positioned in the stand. We've found that using a hand saw (as opposed to something like a chainsaw or reciprocating saw) coincided with longer life for our trees. I wonder if too much friction sometimes seals off the base. We've had the best results using distilled water with our trees (usually Frasier Firs). Using various sugary solutions or that special liquid additive never worked for us. Also, we run a humidifier in the living room while the tree is up. The tree brings up the humidity a little, but our house is sooo dry that it needs a little help. We've also got an automatic tree waterer from Lee Valley, the kind where you fill an old 2-litre pop bottle and plop it upside down in a base that has a tube running to the tree stand. Those things are awesome. We're going to pick up a second one. Our tree this year drank 6 litres in it's first 24 hours and we're often having to set an alarm for the middle of the night to check on it (you can't take the bottle off to top it up before bed; it has to be empty). Photo is from Christmas morning, but it looks the same today. :)