My husband and I have a live tree we've been bringing into the house for the last 8-9 years. When I was growing up, a friend of the family always got a mis-shapen tree, because "every tree deserves a home, even if it's ugly". I thought that was very cool. Our ornaments have primarily been gifts or passed down, so there's history behind just about every one of them. Our tree is still pretty small, but I load it up with ornaments anyway.