DALLAS - The British may trail their neighbors in fine cuisine, superb wines and clocklike efficiency. But when it comes to Christmas trees, the United Kingdom is peerless.

Now look what the Brits have done. Last year, when the trendiest Americans were hanging their trees upside down, style-setters in Great Britain dumped dreams of a white Christmas and embraced the dark side – black trees with black trunks and black branches, like Scotch pines scorched in a wildfire.

"Black and white has been a strong interiors trend for a couple of years now," Susan Rose, editor of Britain's Ideal Home magazine, said last fall. "If you want to do an elegant, sophisticated Christmas, black is the way to do it."

Now edgy Americans chase that look, too. They began calling Christmas tree dealers as soon as they heard the news. This year, black joins our holiday palette.

"With the black Christmas tree, we made a bet based on what we saw in Europe last year and the number of people who called this year and said to put them on the list," said Bill Quinn of the Dallas-based ChristmasTreeForMe.com.

Mostly, these are trees to complement decor, or to make a strong style statement, Quinn said.

"I don't know that people buy these for their main tree," he said. "Most of the people I've talked with are buying them for a party, or because they have a certain kind of ornament set that will look really good on the black."

Some, like one hostess he knows, want a tree so different that their guests will talk of little else.

Peggy Chappell of the Noel Christmas Store in Dallas has sold black trees for several years now, often to people looking for a Halloween decoration, but sometimes to families who wanted a second tree in a kitchen, where the appliances were similarly black.

"I don't know that this is going to be a trend here," she said. "What we've sold more of last year and this year are tinsel trees, made out of foil and wire, in lime green or pink, purple, blue or red.

"They're fun and trendy and not that expensive, and they make a nice secondary tree, like a pink one in a girl's room."

Chappell and Quinn praised the emergence of "authentic" artificial trees over the past few years and their increasing sophistication and realism.

"These are the hottest trend in conventional artificial trees, and they really are spectacular-looking," Chappell said.

"At our Christmas in July sale, we sold out just based on photos in a book. And now we're almost sold out again. It really is an incredible-looking tree."

"Basically, people go out in the woods and find a real good specimen, and they'll cut off a branch, pack it in dry ice and send it to China, where someone will make a mold," he said. "That makes for a very realistic tree.

So some manufacturers make hybrid trees that use realistic branch tips molded by polyethylene and more conventional inner branches to add fullness.

Quinn's personal favorite,
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