Team Real

When my brother and I were kids, he developed a mysterious allergy to balsam firs. Worse than the wheezing, in my opinion, was the remedy: an artificial Christmas tree. Gone was our family’s annual visit to the tree farm, where we’d clamor around the fluffiest, greenest specimen as if it were George Clooney. Instead, we trekked to Walmart and grudgingly selected the best-looking cardboard box. After 30 minutes of trimming that evoked all the wonder of assembling an Ikea coffee table, we had a “tree.” It didn’t look bad. But it felt wrong—counterfeit, like a hunk of PVC posing as nature, shipped across an ocean to mock us in our own living room. I missed the tiny, quaint delights that come with inviting a piece of the forest into one’s home: the soft pinch of pine needles, the sw

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