As a child,
one of the fondest memories I have was joining Mom and Dad in the annual
adventure of picking out the family Christmas tree. It involved going to several tree lots to
find “the perfect” tree.
Dad would wade
into the “forest” and pick out one that had that “just right” shape. He’d call Mom and me over to inspect the tree
he’d chosen. Mom would circle the tree
to make sure there weren’t any bad spots.
Then I would give it a thumbs up.
I remember the
advent of the artificial tree. Sometime
around 1965 the aluminum tree debuted in America. If you bought one of those babies you had to
have a color
wheel to shine on it. It was like a
disc that was divided into four colors that turned so that each color would
alternately illuminate the shiny limbs of the tree. Mom
and Dad decided to buy one. I never
liked it and was very vocal about it. I
think we put the hideous thing up twice before I convinced them that a real
tree was so much better. I missed the
trip to the tree lot; the excitement of hunting for and finding the right tree,
strapping it to the roof of the car and decorating it when we got it home. There’s something about the scent of a real
tree at Christmastime.
Thanks to A Charlie Brown Christmas, sales of the aluminum tree
declined. In the Peanuts special, Charlie
Brown and his pal Linus head to a lot to buy a tree for the school play. They are overwhelmed by all the aluminum
trees. Charlie Brown spots a tiny,
pitiful Christmas tree and Linus asks, “Do they still make wooden
Christmas trees?” A Charlie Brown Christmas pointed to an
over-commercialization of Christmas.
Lately, I
haven’t seen as many trees going down the highway headed to someone’s
home. Is this a sign that the artificial
tree has replaced the real thing in our homes?
I am happy to
report that the answer is a resounding no.
According to the National Christmas Tree Association, poll
results from 2011 show that consumers in the U.S. purchased just under 31
million farm-grown Christmas trees and 9.5 million new plastic, artificial
trees. Real trees outsell artificial trees by a greater than 3 to 1 margin.
There are some
beautiful artificial trees available.
The good ones are pricey. I
realize that they don’t dry out, they don’t drop needles that wind up becoming
embedded in the carpet and aren’t messy when you take them down.
Call me
old-fashioned, but it’s hard to beat bundling up in your winter coat, popping
in a Bing Crosby CD and hitting the road in search of the Yuletide spirit and
memory-making that can be found in the perfect 8-foot Fraser fir. It far surpasses plunking down $100 or more
for the perfect limited-warranty, made in China, pre-lit polyvinylchloride
Christmas tree.
