Advent Calendar: The Christmas Tree

Did you have a real tree or was it artificial? How big was the tree? Who decorated the tree? What types of Christmas trees did your ancestors have?

The earliest pictures of Christmas trees I have in my stash of family photos come from the 1950's. The common element seems to be a liberal use of tinsel. (I love tinsel, but we could never have it in my childhood home, because our cat, Joey, couldn't resist eating it. This is how he earned the nickname Tinsel Butt, and let's just say, it was quite literal. Ewww.)

1952

my mom's first Christmas

1958

my dad (age 11), his brother Criss, cousin Neil

1962

My eldest cousin was a Christmas baby, so that's actually a birthday cake in the photo.

While all of those trees look real, I grew up with fake trees. I remember having a heavily flocked tree in the 1980's, and for many years we had just a small tabletop tree on a plant stand, like this one from my parents' home in 2002:


I love the tradition of hanging Danish flags around the tree, in honor of our Danish heritage. (It's not something that was passed down in our family, but rather a tradition picked up from the Danish exchange student who lived with my family when I was in high school.)

The tree was always set up during the weekend after Thanksgiving, and my mom and I decorated it together.

But my mom's Christmas trees have become less festive since my parents became empty nesters. Case in point, Christmas 2006:


Really, Mom, tsk tsk. ;-)

My husband's parents have a fake tree, too. It lives most of the year, completely set up, in their basement storage, and comes out to the family room in December.


But his grandparents have a fake tree with a spinning base, so they can catch a glimpse of the ornaments on the back side, too. It barely fits in its spot behind the dining table and always seems to be getting caught on something.


For our first few years together, my husband and I had a tall fake tree that I had inherited from my parents. As a gift for our first Christmas together, my parents gave us the star for the top of the tree.


This was our daughter's first Christmas tree in 2007. Here she is "helping" Papa put the star on the tree.

But still, I'd never had a real tree. Last year I used this sob story ;-) to convince my husband that we ought to have a real tree, so we ventured out to the Christmas tree farm. It was a lot of fun and a tradition that I hope to carry on.




I loved the look and smell of a real tree, and it quickly turned me into a Christmas tree snob. =) No more fake trees for me!

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