Today's fakes come with hinged branches that no longer need to be assembled one by one, and many come with holiday lights built in, eliminating that tangled nightmare. Internet artificial tree supplier Tree Classics offers 50 varieties of trees ranging in size from 4 1/2 feet to 40 feet, and in price from $69.95 to $11,995. The most expensive is a pre-lit 30-foot emerald monster with 21,100 clear or multicolor lights and 64,800 tips ("Commercial grade lighting, professionally entwined amidst the lush, dense foliage, guarantees continuity from top to bottom. Twist proof bulbs with locking sockets provide unparalleled reliability. Dazzling illumination, manufactured to endure season after season use, is backed by our exclusive 5 year warranty").

But as a particularly astute natural tree fan from Maine wrote, "Artificial trees are like breast implants. They look funny, they don't feel right and why would you consider them when the real thing is readily available and works just fine?"

Yes, it takes time and effort to search out, locate, agree upon, purchase, haul, erect and decorate a real tree, which will only last a month at best before casting its miniature spears to the four corners of your home, but the time and effort spent is precious family ritual; and for the tree to work as a symbol of life, nature, and man's oneness with other living things, it's kind of important for the symbol to actually be ALIVE, or at least formerly alive, or whatever a tree is after it has been decapitated, er, derootitated. An artificial tree is a symbol of a symbol and that's a little too symbolic for me in these attenuated times.

I like the fact that the tree won't look the same by New Year's Day as it did when we set it up last weekend, that it is an hourglass graphically displaying the progress of the finite holiday season. I like the fact that real Christmas trees aren't perfect, are individuals with individual flaws and character. And I love the smell, evergreen until it's gone, just like Christmas.