When my kids were younger, before we had money, we had a “tree” each year that I’d put up after they went to bed. Always something different. One year lights in the coat rack, one year construction paper on the wall, one year my ex cut the top off one of the bushes outside and we sort of carved it into the cone shape, once an inflatable beach ball sort of tree, all sorts of different things but it was never an actual Christmas tree.