With the ever increasing size of the hole in the o-zone layer, anyone who condones the cutting down of a live plant for the sole purpose of decorating their house for a short lived festivity, needs cancelling. The sooner people realise the imminent demise of the earth and all the creatures on it, will be a direct result of the blind fashion in which we treat the living plants and animals which currently assist with keeping the native pendulum balanced. Every single tree, albeit large or small, assists in its own little way to keep this planet we all call home, habitable.
If you have no regard for the future of the planet, and its inhabitants, then by all means stick your head in a bucket of sand, and pretend there isn't a problem, and go and buy, or cut down one of our living saviours, and use it for a few weeks to keep a very few happy.
I bet none of you who use live/dead trees ever thought of planting one in its place, or even better, using a potted variety for use each year round.