Holiday Cheer Without the Tree: Alternatives We Love
Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, a little greenery around the house is a winter necessity.
Photo by Johner Images via Getty Images
For better or worse, in the Western world, Christmas is kind of a juggernaut, with its traditions and aesthetic spilling out all over the place. (And the music! Oy, the music.) “Reason for the Season” aside, there’s lots to appreciate about Christmas, particularly when one considers that many of our holiday traditions were created by folks who endured very long, cold winters and needed to emerge from it all with a shred of their mental health intact: Northern Europeans. Surviving long bouts of darkness requires lots of crackling fire, plenty of cookies (and mulled wine), and of course, a dead (albeit fragrant) tree festooned with baubles and twinkling lights, and we have snow-bound pagans to thank for all of it. For non-Christians, cookies and candles are perfectly acceptable ways to observe the holidays, but the tree really sticks as a symbol of Christmas. Fortunately, there are so many other ways to have a little holiday greenery without committing to Christmas, and you can leave these around the house well into January without getting side-eye from your neighbors. Here are a few of our favorite Christmas tree alternatives.
Poinsettia, the Christmas Queen
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There are so many gorgeous poinsettias out now, we’re no longer relegated to red or white. There are pink ones! Ruffly cream-colored ones! Salmon-colored varieties with red speckles! The grocery store in my neighborhood has a giant display of about a dozen different types, and it’s just glorious. We’ve got a whole eye candy-rich roundup of them for your perusal right here.
Christmas Cactus, Another Classic
Photo by Johner Images via Getty Images
Another classic holiday houseplant, Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera truncata) is a tropical, epiphytic cactus hailing from Brazil, and when well cared-for, will reliably explode in blooms in shades of vermilion, fuchsia, white, and pretty much everything in between from around Thanksgiving to the new year. They can be a little fussy; once they set their flower buds, you have to keep them in the same place and give them steady light and water or they’ll petulantly drop their flowers before they even open.
Bouquets of Winter Greens
Red’s not your color? No problem. Leave out the holly and go with a bouquet of eucalyptus, snowberry, coniferous greens, and pine cones that’s unexpectedly gorgeous and smells like the Swiss Alps.
