This will be somewhat off topic, but a worthy discussion, in my opinion.

Just so you know....the cut Xmas tree business is a renewable one. The idea that you are cutting down trees for nothing is simply not true. These conifers are replaced all the time; the land that they are growing on is always full of growing trees. It is no more an instance of the 'ridiculous' killing of trees than is the harvesting of any renewable crop....corn, wheat, cotton, etc.

Also, every community I've lived in within the last 25 years has had a Xmas tree recycling program so that you can have your tree turned into mulch.

In most instances, Xmas tree farms are privately rather than corporately owned, often held within the same families for generations. Their trees are not cut down, never to be replaced, leaving acreages barren. As a matter of fact, new trees are often planted amongst the older ones, so that clear cutting never occurs.

My only issue with these trees is that, due to insect pressure, they are usually a high pesticide-use crop. For that reason, when we buy our tree (which we do every year), we keep it outside..."planted" in a hole in the ground (PVC pipe) and covered with lights. It sits right outside our big front window... rather than inside! We buy from a local tree farm.

Mind you, I am extremely sensitive to chemicals so we CAN'T have it inside, but we sure do enjoy the glimmering lights every year.

Back to your topic, I love to see indoor trees decorated with lights. I'll bet that a lot of people do it.

I have never seen a non-conifer Christmas tree! I have seen other bushes and trees decorated with Christmas lights outdoors but never as the tree with ornaments! Maybe I'll decorate my Ficus Benjamina!

If you can't bring your Norfolk Island Pine indoors how does it survive? I know Zone 7 much to cold for them! I have 2 smaller ones (around 2 feet tall). I hope to use them as Christmas trees when they are larger. I always have issues keeping the humidity up high enough in the winter (especially with the fireplace on weekends) and they loose needles all winter when indoors only to "catch up" in the during the Summer months when placed outside.

Looking forward for some neat pictures!
TJ

njoasis, despite what you tend to hear online frequently, everything I've seen personally indicates that NIPs tolerate top pruning just fine and if it's a matter of cutting it back a few feet or letting it die outdoors, cutting it back is probably a better option (although obviously probably better done in the spring, but...)

It's side pruning they don't really like.

Anyway I decorated my S. Trifasciata once since I had some small, lightweight, plush ornaments that I basically just tied to the leaves (although I ended up throwing most of said S. Trifasciata away since it was huge and I stopped having room for it).

"I always have issues keeping the humidity up high enough in the winter..."

I am too, this year. In my old place the RH would usually gravitate around 40-50% which was fine for pretty much everything was growing. Now it's gravitating around 25-30 which is undesirable (and sort of weird. I don't, as far as I know, have forced air heating [heating is a radiator powered by geothermally heated water or something] or anything else that typically causes major humidity drops).

While I was decorating our cut fir, I found out that my friends and roommates decorated not only my ficus benjamina but my Meyer lemon as well.

The more Christmas trees the better!

I have a small jungle of trees in my living room that I put decorations and lights on this year including banana, palms, citrus, brugmansia, Suriname cherry, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: Christmas jungle