If you are sensitive to any evergreen tree, you could, obviously, use a fake tree made of plastic or metal, but there are ways to make a real tree more tolerable. People with sensitivities have given me some great ideas.
- Decorate a live tree outside and put it in a picture window. That way you can see it but don’t have to smell it. Then place your gifts “under” the tree by putting them under the window. You could even plant a live tree in the window so it would be there year after year.
- Put up a tree with outdoor lights and bird food (pine cones with peanut butter and millet branches) outside a picture window. Your tree will be filled with birds.
- Find any green plant that you tolerate and decorate it with lights and ornaments.
- Use bare branches from a florist or outdoors and decorate it with Christmas tree ornaments.
One year, when I was on a very tight budget, I decorated a branch that had fallen in a storm. Though evergreens have a tradition with being associated with the continuation of life through the long winter, really you can decorate anything—it’s the spirit that counts!
