For Samar Baydoun Bazzi, the Ramadan Tree grew out of a desire to mark the Islamic holy month with festive cheer.

Growing up as a Muslim in the U.S., Baydoun Bazzi, 29, of Dearborn said she noticed a lack of decorations during the month-long holiday, which Muslims observe by fasting from sunrise to sundown to commemorate the revelation of the Quran to the prophet Muhammad.

“Obviously, Ramadan’s important,” Baydoun Bazzi said. “You gotta pray and fast, and you want to become closer to your creator. But I never as a kid felt like there was any decorations or like a celebration. I wanted something exciting.”

When she became a mother, she decided to take matters into her own hands and create the kind of Ramadan experience she wished for as a child.

She began by decorating her west Dearborn home with Islamic-themed art, like acrylic paintings of Arabic calligraphy and a cardboard model of a mosque.

It wasn’t enough.

So in 2014, she said, she decided to put up a Christmas tree.

It didn't last long.

“Oh, Christmas!” Baydoun Bazzi remembers her daughter Zahraa, then 4 years old, shouting.

“I knew that it was a mistake,” Baydoun Bazzi said of her decision. “So I looked at my tree and decided to take it apart.”

That’s when the Ramadan Tree first took root.

In her basement, Baydoun Bazzi, a mother of three, takes artificial Christmas trees and twists and bends them into the shape of a crescent moon, a universal symbol of Islam, whose religious calendar is based on the lunar cycle. Ramadan, which marks the ninth month of the Islamic year, begins May 16 and ends June 14, according to the Islamic Society of North America.

The first crescent tree took her 20 minutes to make and it “died,” Baydoun Bazzi said. Now the trees take her anywhere from two to five hours to shape because she wants to ensure they’re stable and won’t fall apart.

They go quick.

Since January, she has sold about 40 trees, which cost $150, come in two colors, forest green or white, and come with lights and an ornamental star of either five or eight points.

Baydoun Bazzi currently has about 20 people on the wait list and said she gets more orders every day as Ramadan approaches. She hopes to get the trees manufactured in the future, which she says would be "a lot quicker."

The trees can be shipped at a cost, said Baydoun Bazzi, who has sold to customers in Chicago, Virginia, New York and Minnesota.

She has gained customers by word of mouth. It started with family, Baydoun Bazzi said. Then with friends of family and their friends' friends. People saw the tree and began bringing her their own trees to have her reshape them. Baydoun Bazzi also operates private Facebook and Instagram accounts for the tree.

But Baydoun Bazzi isn't the only local Muslim building holiday trees.

Suzanne Jaber, 44, of Dearborn Heights started making her Crescent Moon Trees in 2015, and uses them to celebrate Islamic holidays year-round, including Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, and Mawlid al-Nabi, the prophet's birthday.

Jaber, a mother of four, lived part of her childhood in Lebanon, where she says they used to decorate the house with a "New Year Tree" around Christmastime and said that her children had always wanted a Christmas tree.

“It wasn’t foreign for us to put a Christmas tree in Lebanon," Jaber said. "So when we came here, we did put it for few years, but when I got married, I didn’t put one because I always thought if my kids weren’t good religious enough, their kids and, you know, maybe their other generations, they put a Christmas tree, they would think they’re something else other than Muslim.”

In 2014, when Mawlid al-Nabi and Christmas were near in dates, Jaber decided to decorate with a Christmas tree and said it left her feeling a "little guilty."

The following year, Jaber said, she made her first Crescent Moon Tree to celebrate the prophet's birthday. She took apart her artificial Christmas tree and glued and stapled the pieces to a crescent-shaped board. Today, she crafts them by inserting the branches through the board.

Jaber makes large trees and small tabletop trees. She said she has sold about 15 large trees in 2018 and one or two smaller trees each week, but didn't have the exact number on hand. The large trees go for $150 and the smaller ones are priced at $55. She runs an Instagram page called The Eid Shop, featuring photos of trees, lanterns, ornaments, and other decorations.

"All the people that come to my house to pick up their tree, they all talk about it's something for the kids, because, you know, they think other kids from other religions have more fun with their religion," Jaber said, adding: "We don't celebrate Eid like we used to, or like other people do it in their own countries."

Read more:

Calling cops because of race should be a crime

Tiny addicts: U.P. babies fight drug withdrawal

Most customers have a similar story as hers, Baydoun Bazzi said.

“I’ve had customers come to me and tell me, ‘Where was this when I was growing up?’ ” Baydoun Bazzi said. “You know, they tell me that their kids always ask, why don’t we have our own tree, why don’t we have decorations? So pretty much they all just want to make their children happy, just like I wanted to make mine.”

Rochelle Salha, 53, of Dearborn said her kids were excited when she bought the Ramadan Tree from Baydoun Bazzi because they felt like they had a Christmas tree.

“They really do feel like they’re part of something, you know, even though we do all the Ramadan things," Salha said. "It makes them feel more like it’s a holiday."

Salha, who grew up Christian and converted to Islam, said that she bought the tree last Ramadan. It's still in her basement and she plans to decorate it with ornaments and to place gifts under the tree for Eid al-Fitr, the feast day that follows the final day of fasting.

Baydoun Bazzi said she doesn’t put presents under her tree, and that she takes her kids to the store and has them pick their presents instead.

“I don’t want it too similar to Christmas, just because I make it out of a tree,” she said. “You know, I want it to be our own. ... I don’t want it to be too familiar to Christmas.”

The similarity to Christmas has brought about some criticism, Baydoun Bazzi said, with some people worrying she's trying to fold Christmas into Ramadan or that she might confuse children. There are also concerns surrounding the Christmas tree's possible pagan origins, Baydoun Bazzi said.

"That's not my intention," she said, adding: "Honestly, all of us that make them just want to make our children happy. That's my main reason."

Eman Saleh, 31, of Dearborn, who bought a Ramadan Tree for her 7-year-old daughter, Amira, around Christmas, said she enjoys seeing such innovations in the Muslim-American community and young children having something to relate to.

“So I’m really happy to see that they’re making efforts to prioritize making it enjoyable for the youth because it’s tougher, it’s tougher nowadays to be, you know, a Muslim in this day and age,” Saleh said. “And so I think if we’re able to start when they’re young and to make them feel strong and to make them feel connected to their identity, then we’re on to a good start.”

Contact Hasan Dudar: hdudar@freepress.com.