STYLE / GARDENS : Boughing to Tradition

Every year before Christmas, I agonize over whether or not to get a tree. I drive by lots filled with upright green bundles imprisoned in twine. Packed tight against cyclone fences, they beg to be set free. I think about the millions of others just like them, severed from their roots, shipped hundreds of miles from home, doomed to a few miserable weeks in overheated living rooms tricked out in lights, tinsel and tchotchkes. Outlasting our festive attentions, they’ll be stripped of their dressings and tossed into the gutter to lie there derelict, as if served one too many brandied eggnogs.

I hate people who cut down trees. My favorite charity is TreePeople. Friends and relatives who have everything get a sapling planted in their honor. So how could I possibly support the wholesale slaughter of forests--sustainable or no--in the name of holiday decor?

Then, around Dec. 15, I begin to feel the hole in the living room where the tinsel, lights and tchotchkes should be. The ficus still isn’t big enough to host the ornaments I’ve collected for the past 20 years.

I consider an artificial tree. A one-time purchase forged from petroleum byproducts would solve the problem forever. So would suicide. I need the smell of pine and the stickiness of sap on my fingers.

I consider a living tree, but there are too many stairs at our house for visitors in 15-gallon pots and nowhere to plant them come the new year.

I consider an excursion to a tree farm for the warm memory-building benefits, then remember that, as a child, I never enjoyed stalking our family’s Christmas tree. It’s like going out and killing your Thanksgiving turkey. Buying a tree from a lot, I feel several stages removed from the worst of its suffering.

So I give in. My husband and I go to a lot, salving my guilt by choosing one run by a benevolent organization. We seek a tree to honor our home with its presence but, this close to Christmas, all the perfectly conical-shaped puppies are gone. I settle for something in a nice, vaguely triangular fir or spruce. It seduces me with sylvan smells and the forest’s mystery. I feel I’ve rescued it from further anguish by allowing it to play this ritual part.

We drag it home. My husband attaches the stand, a violent episode involving spikes jammed into the trunk. I leave the house until the cursing ends.

Then out come the ornaments.

When I was young, our Christmas tree was a tribute to ‘50s conformity: flocked white and decorated solely in red glass balls tied with red ribbons. An albino with measles. As an adult, I’ve fully embraced cultural diversity. My trees are always green and hung with a collection of Hindu masks, Chinese characters and miniature sombreros. Finding the perfect branch for each object is an intimate task. We test for strength and balance while breathing deeply and often.

Fully dressed, the tree stands proud, a book of our lives, each ornament an open page. We turn on the lights and lay gifts at its feet.

Then we open the presents. Within minutes, the tree becomes a stale fruitcake memory in the corner, the last, bothersome cleanup chore. When falling needles threaten a fire hazard, we finally rip off its finery and chuck it onto the roadside. There, it and its kind depress me well into February, when the last trees are retrieved by the trash man.

The National Christmas Tree Assn. and environmentalists endorse this process of sacrifice and redemption. Besides giving us something to hang our frosted glass balls and blinking lights on, tree farms contribute wildlife habitat and oxygen. And with so many communities now turning apres Xmas trees into mulch, I can almost drag one home with a clear conscience. I say almost. It wouldn’t be Christmas without a few cloudy thoughts. Maybe next year I’ll tackle my deep inner conflict over poinsettias.

* To recycle a cut tree, call the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works Recycling and Household Hazardous Waste Hotline for mulching information, (800) 552-5218. * To rent a tree, pay $20 for a cut tree at IKEA stores through today. Return the tree for mulching Jan. 13-14 only and get a $10 refund. * When buying living trees, be sure you can transplant them after the holidays and are committed to their long-term care. Some types recommended for Southern California’s climate: Norfolk Island, Aleppo, Canary Island, Italian stone and Japanese black pines. * To donate a living tree to a church, school, parks department or scouting organization, call TreePeople for referrals, (818) 753-4600. To make a donation to have a new tree planted, call (818) 753-TREE.