I recall Christmases when we lived in the Great Stone House on my grandfather’s farm. We’d always have a Christmas tree, and I can still remember my father bringing one home (sometimes I’d go with him to pick it up) and we’d put it in the red and green stand, already filled with water to keep it fresh. As I recall, we’d only get it a few days before Christmas, and then take it down either just before New Year’s Day or right after, I’m not sure. Christmas season didn’t last as long in those days as it seems to these days.

The Christmas tree tradition continued when we moved to Richland, at least for our first Christmas there in 1957.

But my mother was probably the least sentimental person that I’ve known when it comes to traditions, and now that she had a beauty shop to maintain, which kept her busy at all hours of the day, often up to ten o’clock in the evening, she decided that a live Christmas tree was too much work with all those pine needles cluttering up the place. Things might have been different had she had more help with the housework, but there was only my father, my sister, and me, so there was really nobody available to help her with the household chores.

Starting in 1958 we had an artificial Christmas tree. Although they are common today, we were not only the first ones on our block to have one, but the first ones in our extended family to try the experiment.

Artificial Christmas trees were relatively new in those days, and the one we got was not green. It was silver, sort of a tinsel tree. I believe it was made of aluminum or some related metal. It looked like tinsel gone mad.  Because of that, one could not decorate it with lights, one could only hang non-electric ornaments from it, and since it was already tinsel-y, there was no need for the final step of tossing tinsel on it. But there were no pine needles to clean up afterwards.

Update: I forgot to add the moral: Sometimes an artificial tree, even an aluminum one, has its advantages!

As one couldn’t decorate it with lights, it came with its own flood light that had a rotating disk with three or four colors on it; the idea was to aim the light at the tree and watch the changing colors. We only used that the first year; after that the light remained in the box and eventually disappeared.

We kept that silvery tinsel tree for quite a few years, and needless to say, I no longer looked forward to trimming the tree, but as I said, my mother didn’t have to clean up the pine needles, so for her it was a win.

Eventually, I’m not sure when, I think my parents got a more respectable artificial tree. One that was actually green.

I was reminded of this when I heard Chris Smith on a recent Ask the Naked Scientists podcast talk about his tale of buying a large Christmas tree a few years ago. It wouldn’t fit in his car, so his wife went to pick it up in her larger vehicle. For some reason, they couldn’t unload it right away, so it sat in her car for several hours.

Anyway, several weeks later, her car began to fail in several unexpected ways; various electrical systems were going kerflooey! So they took the vehicle in to have it looked at and discovered that it was infested with a family of rats that had been happily eating all the electrical wires. Apparently the tree had been the home of the rats, and when they found themselves in the warm environment of the car, they relocated.

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter!