Arbol Navideño

A Christmas tree in miniature, and one that goes up without dropping needles on the carpet. The Spanish name suits it. This is the small decorative fir that appears on a hallway table in the first week of December and stays until Twelfth Night, standing in for the real thing where a full tree was never going to fit. Tiered branches taper to a point, the silhouette anyone reads as festive from across a room. It behaves as a seasonal ornament rather than a toy: something to set beside a card display, mark a desk at work through the party season, or line up along a mantelpiece in a group of three or four. A single-file model, which makes it straightforward to run off several once one tree turns out not to be enough.