Christmas Trees

Every December, Michelle Corral participates in a family ritual: driving from her home in Ventura to the Santa Paula Christmas Tree Farm in search of the perfect pine to cut down and take home. The tradition began before she was old enough to walk. "It's always been a nice place to come," Corral says. "There's always families all over the place picking out their trees, kids running around having a good time." Michelle is 24 now and has a family of her own.

Here we are in the coming winter of hard skies. Cairo. Men in tunics coil turbans, sniffles in their noses. Fires burn, garbage smokes. Stones grip the night's chill. Delivery boys pedal through morning and girls in white linen hijabs hurry over train tracks. Gruff dudes sell Christmas trees in the roundabout, but the silver tinsel and the pop-up cardboard Santa seem like misfits against the palms at the desert's edge. It's as if they fell off a truck on their way to someplace else.

Think you've seen artificial Christmas trees in every color -- neon, metallic or otherwise? Get ready for the Chocolate Truffle. The pre-lighted tree from Treetopia.com is an obvious riff on the brown-is-the-new-black trend seen in fashion and furniture. "Dead trees don't have this rich milk-chocolate color to them," says Treetopia Vice President Carrie Chen. She says that the faux flora, bedecked with natural pine cones, looks traditional with red and gold bulbs or modern with silver.

It's 4:30 in the morning and Jacob Paz has been awake for half an hour, trying to squeeze in a little homework. But the phone rings. A load of 250 Christmas trees is on the way. So much for the 17-year-old high school senior's plan to start his English essay on how two world wars fueled disillusionment in American literature. It's time to get to work. Since Oct.

Two rainy summers followed by drought have produced a shortage of some Christmas tree varieties in New York, especially Fraser firs, one of the most popular choices, according to growers. "We've had it three years in a row now. Two with excess rain and now a drought. Mother Nature can't seem to get it right," said Robert Norris, a tree farmer and executive secretary of the Christmas Tree Farmers Assn. of New York Inc.

Cutting down living pines. Assembling complicated artificial monstrosities. Bah, humbug! This holiday season, clever designs make putting up a tree easy. These small-scale faux firs reflect design trends, whether your look is ski chalet chic or Marie Antoinette-goes-mod.

Apparently, when it comes to holiday symbols, size does matter. At least it did to some folks in Long Beach, who were none too happy with the elfin Christmas tree planted next to a 20-foot-high menorah at Kennedy Plaza in front of City Hall. They called, they sent letters, they testified at a public hearing. Long Beach resident Rick Hoffman put it this way: "What's up with the giant menorah and the Charlie Brown Christmas tree?" he asked.

President Bush, keeping up a White House tradition that spans decades, ushered in the holidays as the National Christmas Tree came aglow in bright lights of gold, red and blue. The president thanked people across the country for upholding the spirit of the season. "During this Christmas season millions of Americans will answer this call by reaching out a compassionate hand to help brothers and sisters in need," Bush told a crowd of thousands on the Ellipse.

DAVID BLAIR has 26 decorated Christmas trees inside his two-bedroom Studio City home. Still, he's used fewer than half of the 10,000 ornaments in his burgeoning collection, which now overflows his closets, garage and rented storage space. He continues to collect, cannot seem to stop. "There are trees in every room, even the kitchen and bath. It's kind of an obsession," he cheerfully admits. But not one you'd want to cure.