A Charlie Brown Christmas Fact Check: Aluminum Christmas Trees

[NYCgrrl]

Debbie Kelly, a childhood neighbor, had one. It was silver tinsel with satin blue ribbon floss Styrofoam balls of various shapes and the obligatory rotating color wheel and was put up a week or so before the actual Day. Very fascinating for a family of real tree purists who dinna get a tree until Christmas Eve.One of my aunts had the same tree and setup with mustard gold balls substituting for blue.

Oh and after years of struggling to buy and decorate the tree in one day to keep up with "tradition", my mother sighed and said "You do realise that we bought the tree on the Eve because it was cheaper, right?". Noooooooooo I dinna....you did a great job of hiding how poor we were!?!
Changed my whole outlook and it wasn't long before Balsam Hill's siren call reached my ears.

 

[powellrj]

I had one in my bedroom growing up. I had an aunt who knew how much I loved hers so when she stopped decorating she gave it to us. My mom hated it so she let me have it. I put it up for several years. This was in the 60’s.

 

[elgerber]

My grandmothers sister had a HUGE silver one. I always loved going over there to see it. This would have been the mid to late 70's, and they still put it up every year.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

My great-grandmother had one, with a color wheel. We visited her often in her apartment when I was a kid, and the adults used to turn off the lights in the living room so just the color wheel was rotating. They knew I'd happily sit for the entire visit spellbound by the changing lights and sparkly silver tree while they talked at the kitchen table.

 

[h518may]

As a kid my mom would put a small one up each year, sometimes with the color wheel sometimes without. We decorated the silver one usually the beginning of November and she sat it on our buffet. Then if she wrapped presents before we got a real tree she had somewhere to put them. We then put up a real tree about two weeks before Christmas and moved the presents. I always liked that tree, but I think that’s because it signaled the beginning of the Christmas season in our house. If it had been our only tree I wouldn’t have been happy.

 

[hopemax]

I was born in 1975, so beyond the Aluminum Tree phase. However, Christmas decorating was a really big thing in our house while I was growing up. When we moved into my parents' dream home (a 1912 Victorian) we decided to put up as many trees as we could, of various sizes and types (this would be late 80's - early 90s). I think the record was 42 trees. In order to get that many trees, my Dad used to regularly visit the Salvation Army store near his work. He came home with several aluminum trees that he only paid $3 or $5 for. Of course, now those trees would resell for $100 or more. And yes, we had several color wheels too.

 

[Owlpost23]

I have my grandmother's silver aluminum Christmas tree from the 1960's. She stopped putting it up by the early 70's, and sat in her basement until she died. My mother was going to throw it out, but I asked to have it. I put it up every few years. It's more than a bit ratty by now, and a few of the branches are missing. Each branch is stored in an individual paper tube.

The color wheel stopped working years ago. I suppose I can find a new one somewhere.

I'll see if I can find a photo and post it later.

The Vermont Country Store sells the color wheels.

 

[Meriweather]

yes, we had one and with the color wheel

 

[tvguy]

You can still buy them. They are very expensive. We never had one. We were like the first on our block with an artificial tree. My dad was a lumber salesman and thought cutting down a tree to use for a few weeks was a waste. That tree eventually could be big enough to produce lumber for a building that could be around for hundreds of years.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mid-Cent...2109&wl11=online&wl12=107322806&wl13=&veh=sem

 

[usnuzuloose]

We had one in the 70's but no wheel color with it. I don't know what happened to that tree.

 

[RedAngie]

Photos from last year.

Protective paper sleeves for each branch and stained box.

 

[xlsm]

My ex-MIL bought one a few years ago that she found in an antique store in perfect condition. Her husband made it his mission to find her all kinds of vintage ornaments, and from what I hear, it looks really cool. Color wheel and all.

After a few years of it, she told me she is missing her traditional big green tree with matching decorations, but she feels like she has to keep it up b/c of how hard her DH worked to find her all the vintage stuff.

My kids told me they think it's weird, LOL, but I'm into that funky stuff so I'm kind of jealous. I have three large green traditional trees myself, but I'm sure I could find a home for that vintage beauty! My DH thinks we've topped out at three, but he knows not to underestimate my ability to find space for Christmas stuff!

 

[karmic]

There was one- with color wheel- in the lobby of my elementary school in the 1960s

 

[antmaril]

We had an aluminum tree with the color wheel! I was born in 1951. My mother thought she was very cool and trendy. Ha!

 

[goofyernmost]

Shortly after the Kennedy Assassination, my parents, obviously still in shock bought an aluminum Christmas tree. It wasn't colored, it came with a spinning wheel that changed the color every few seconds. Red and green and Blue and yellow if I remember properly. Actually, now that I think about it, they bought it the day after Christmas on sale. It was awful, it felt cold and out of place. We used it for one week, and that was the last it was ever seen. It hung around for a long time and I believe my sister finally sold it during a garage sale.

 

[chartle]

Don't have an aluminum tree, though I have heard of them...I'll bet one from the '50s would fetch a pretty penny these days.

Don't mean to sidetrack this, but since we're talking about weird trees, anyone seen the "upside down" tree? Places like Target, Walmart, Kohls sell them. I think it's an interesting novelty, being a living Clark Griswold, I kinda dig it...but they're selling for up to $1000?!?! No thanks, not for that kind of money. Give me one for $100 and under, and I'll be interested. I have about 30 fake trees at home, maybe I'll take one and see if I can do this myself...I have extra stands.

I thought they died 2 or 3 years ago.

 

[bcla]

Not aluminum. By the 70s our family had one made of molded plastic. The pieces fit together like a puzzle.

These days most artificial trees are steel wire with green plastic material. It's not exactly a filament, but I'm not sure exactly what to call it.

 

[chartle]

And you realize why the need for a color wheel instead of lights, so the lights didn't get shorted out by all that thin metal.

I grew up in the 60's and I may have thought I remember a metal tree. My wife's aunt may have had one.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

My Grandparents had one. I thought it was beautiful. But my Grandmother did blue and white ornaments on it and it just sparkled.

 

[leebee]

We had one! I was born in 1956. We lived in a ranch house with radiant heat, built on a concrete slab. We couldn't have a real tree because it would dry out overnight and become a fire hazard. Our tree was much fuller and softer looking than the picture posted above, but I remember each branch wrapped in its own paper tube and the sound it'd make when you slid it out of the tube. Our tree stand revolved and played "Silent Night," and we had the color wheel lamp set up in the corner, because of course you couldn't have wired electrical lights on an aluminum tree (much less one that revolved, LOL). I loved that tree- so sparkly and shimmery, just plain beautiful (IMO of course)! Once they stopped making them and we swapped to a green artificial tree, we had the style where the wire ends of the branches were color coded, so you knew where to put them. Ever since I've had my own home (1986) we've had a live tree until this year. My allergies are too bad for me to have living plants in the house, so we finally gave in and bought an artificial tree again. I don't care- it has tons of lights!