What’s Happening: It seems like with every passing year, niche trade groups catastrophize the growing demand for artificial Christmas trees. Are “real” trees falling out of favor à la the gas stove? The short, not-so-satisfying answer is that it depends who you ask.

The Download: There’s perhaps no greater sign that it’s Christmastime in New York City than when Rockefeller Center sets up its 10-story-tall evergreen. As the merits of “cutting down decades-old trees for a few weeks of viewing” grow increasingly debatable, data from the American Christmas Tree Association indicates that artificial trees are becoming more widely accepted. Its 2023 polls indicated that 77 percent of respondents who planned to display a tree in their home prefer an artificial conifer.

Without looking at the raw data, it’s difficult to say to what extent they represent national trends. Recent analysis of the most up-to-date U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers indicated that 27 percent fewer Christmas trees were cut down in the United States in 2017 as compared to 2002. Anecdotes from longtime tree farmers, like New Jersey’s John Wyckoff, who was recently interviewed by the New York Times, sheds light on the challenges facing the occupation—and where their lived experience diverges from poll estimates.

Wyckoff’s Christmas Tree Farm has supplied trees to Midtown Manhattan and even the White House, but prestige alone can’t overcome the ripple effects of inflation, climate change, and the war in Ukraine. In the story, Michigan State University horticulture professor Bert Cregg estimated that “farmers can make a 50 percent profit on each tree,” but Wyckoff’s margin was closer to 20 percent. Over the past decade, he raised prices on seven-foot trees from $10 per foot to today’s price of $15. Along the way, his business has weathered skyrocketing fertilizer costs and periods of drought and flooding that killed more than half of the 10,000 trees he planted this year. Decades of experience in the business, which his grandfather started in the ‘50s, has prepared him to lose up to 10 percent of his crop in any given year.

Consumers, though, are more inclined to care about the pros and cons of trees in their homes. Artificial ones are easier to tidy and don’t pose a fire risk; “real” ones scent the air. Special interest groups squabble over which is more sustainable, but artificial trees largely prevail as being easier to decorate. For most people, that might mean buying one with built-in lights. The White House’s “Handmaid’s Tale” trees of years past, influencers opting to “sad beige mom” their toddlers’ otherwise festive toy trees, and—sigh—the scourge of designer Christmas trees goes to show that perhaps we could stand to do a little less around the holidays.

In Their Own Words: “It’s part art, part science, and part crystal ball,” Marsha Gray, Real Christmas Tree Board’s executive director, told CNN of the challenges farmers face with the crop’s harvest cycle. “You really are trying to guess what’s going to sell and how much can sell 10 years from now.”

Surface Says: Who knew the Christmas tree had so many trade interests? Just steer clear of their turf wars.

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Designing Delicious is produced in partnership with Dorsia, a members-only platform with access to reservations at the most in-demand restaurants in New York, The Hamptons, Miami, L.A., San Francisco, and London.

There’s little more satisfying—or more primally soothing to our ancient caveman instincts—than a meal cooked by fire. At Saison, a restaurant in San Francisco, the singe of an open hearth is so transportive that it has garnered two Michelin stars. “That’s how the idea of live fire cooking came to be,” says Chef Paul Chung. “We have access to these beautiful products… how do we enhance it by doing as little to it as possible?”

Saison elevates the simplest ingredients into edible art. Rabbit loin and belly is cooked in fermented chestnuts, then plated beside a morel mushroom that’s been stuffed with rabbit blood pudding and seared in the cinders. Sonoma duck is dry-aged for two weeks, smoked, and roasted, and served alongside a sauce made with salted cherry leaves. “Everything that comes on this dish has to touch the fire in some way,” Chung says. But it’s the decidedly free-range kitchen—which is set amid the dining tables in the industrial space, with its brick walls and soaring 30-foot exposed oak ceilings—that’s truly “fire,” to use the parlance of the internet.

Boldizar Senteski began researching mirrored surfaces at university while studying human perception—an interest he has parlayed into hand-crafting one-of-a-kind functional reflective works deeply rooted in the places that inspire him. Now splitting his time between Budapest, Paris, and New York, the multitalented designer often imbues elements from the built environment in his works, including the post-Soviet brutalism of the Hungarian capital, to embrace uncalculated errors while celebrating decay and prosperity.

Our weekly roundup of the internet’s most preposterous headlines, from the outrageous to the outright bizarre.

“I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This”: Japan Says Reason Behind 1,200 Tonnes of Fish Washing Ashore Is Unknown [The Guardian]

Are You a Morning Person? You May Be A Neanderthal Descendant. [Washington Post]

Enormous Spiders May Soon Parachute Into New York [The Cut]

Gay Sex in the Senate?! Ben Cardin Staffer Fired After Porn Video Leaks [The Hill]

Drunk Man Accused of “Molesting” Manatee Statue in Florida Restaurant [The Independent]

Disgusting Moment NYC Commuter Eats an Entire LOBSTER on the Subway by Himself As He Cracks Open the Crustacean With His Bare Hands [The Daily Mail]

New & Notable is a cultural catchall that highlights interesting new products and projects from our brilliantly creative members of The List. With new releases, events, and goings-on, the below moments indicate the power they have to move the needle in realms like design, architecture, fashion, art, and more.

Last week, the art collective celebrated the opening of its newest exhibition, aptly titled “The Collective,” with a dinner and cocktail party at High Line Nine Galleries in New York. More than 100 artists star in the show, which set aside a portion of proceeds to benefit Free Arts NYC, an arts initiative for city children. A family-style dinner at the gallery offered a first look at the show before doors opened for a celebratory cocktail party to toast the occasion.

When was it? Dec. 13

Where was it? High Line Nine Galleries, New York

Who was there? Beatrix Ost, Brianna Lance, Cavier Coleman, Gordon Winarick, Abbey Drucker, Ashley Chew.

When: Until Jan. 6

Where: Settantaventidue, Milan

What: More than 100 Christmas cards created by a who’s-who of the past century’s design talents—Ettore Sottsass, Bruno Munari, and Bob Noorda among them—star in this holiday-appropriate show that subverts the stereotypes of season’s greetings. Ranging from Gio Ponti’s self-celebratory foldout of his then-under-construction Pirelli skyscraper in 1958 to A G Fronzoni’s minimalist Santa and Studio Boggeri’s dotted Christmas tree, the cards show how each designer’s style translates to unexpected modes of visual expression.

After designing for Antwerp-based jewelry label Kim Mee Hye for seven years, Kimy Gringoire took a hiatus and worked as a design consultant before launching her eponymous jewelry brand in 2021. Each piece embodies Gringoire’s unparalleled attention to how it moves with the wearer, while subtle punk references combine narrative design with understated elegance.

Surface Says: Kimy Gringoire combines poetry, gemstones, precious metals, and philosophy to inimitable effect, creating fine jewelry that speaks to a life of travel and romanticism.

Chimpanzees and bonobos may remember faces for two decades.

These Guinness “foot pints” pave the snowy path to the pub this Christmas.

“It’s like the Met Gala for nannies” at the well-attended, all-night Nanny Ball.

Law & Order’s creator donates more than 200 artworks to the Met Museum.