Although some understand the government's desire to prevent further deforestation in the war-ravaged countryside, many said fake trees were out of their price range while the suggested alternative -- banana trees -- has no Christmas meaning.

"It will be a sad Christmas for families," said Marie, a Bujumbura nurse and mother of three whose children have been pestering her for a Christmas tree for days as the weekend holiday approaches.

"I earn 30,000 francs (30 dollars, 27 euros) per month and my husband earns about the same," she said. "We cannot even dream of an artificial fir, otherwise what will we eat?"

The ban on natural Christmas trees, announced this week by the Ministry of Environment, was accompanied by suggestions that those who want to celebrate the day with flora use fake trees or the ubiquitous banana instead.

But with plastic trees running about 65 dollars (54 euros) each -- more than 12 times the average five dollars (four euros) that was charged for a natural tree -- the ban has hit the deeply Christian country hard with people like Marie unable to fathom the thought of hanging ornaments from banana leaves.

"It's not the same thing," she said.

As well as frustrating children, the ban has affected Christmas-dependent businesses by driving natural tree-sellers out of business or underground and cutting into the amount of money that artificial tree buyers can spend on holiday gifts or family feasts, retailers said.

Some Bujumbura shopowners -- including those who used to sell real trees -- say their seasonal business is down as demand for Christmas tree ornaments has plummeted.

"I have only sold three garlands in three weeks," said Hussein, who runs a store on Bujumbura's main commercial street, Mission Avenue, and lamented that two days before Christmas he had carton loads of unsold decorations.

"What am I going to do with all these garlands?" he asked, complaining that if the ban was necessary it should have been announced earlier so that retailers could have avoided ordering goods they are now unable to sell.

Burundi is struggling to recover from an ethnically driven 12-year civil war that claimed some 300,000 lives and many in the country look to the holiday season for a respite from the crushing poverty and continued insecurity that still plague the country despite the formation of a new power-sharing government in August intended to bring a final end to the conflict.

But some see the new government and its Christmas tree ban as infringing on their rights.

"Today, there is authority in Burundi and since the ban was introduced, nobody dares break it," said Andre Bucumu, a Bujumbura street vendor who was forced to abandon his once booming trade in Christmas trees to sell flowers whose popularity is questionable.

The government defends itself from allegations of Grinch-like behavior by noting the ban is key to halt rampant logging that has reduced Burundi's forest cover from eight percent before the war began in 1993 to just four percent now.

The agriculture ministry says the Christmas trade is responsible for the chopping down of about 80,000 conifers amounting to some 80 hectaresacres) of forest each year, figures that are not lost on some Burundians who said they would plow ahead with festivities with or without a tree.

"It will be different, but all the same we will celebrate," said Patrice, a Bujumbura businessman, heaving a long a sigh.

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