Thinking back to a space-age Christmas tree

It’s not Christmas until there’s snow or a Christmas tree or snow on a Christmas tree.

We’ve already had the snow so my plan is to get the tree up this weekend.

Growing up, the tree meant it was time to get serious about Christmas. We always had a cut Christmas tree bought in town. The only place I ever came in contact with a fake tree while I was young was at my grandmother’s house. She had one of those shiny aluminum trees with the color wheel.

We were all reminiscing about those trees and decorations of the past over the Thanksgiving holiday. Some of the younger generation around the table was having a little trouble visualizing what we were talking about.

It was the early 1960s and the space race was on and those shiny aluminum trees were cool because they looked space-age. To us in that day and age it looked a lot like it could maybe blast off to the stars.

My memory is that it was probably about 4-foot tall, maybe a little bit taller. There were no lights on it because, duh, electric lights on a metal tree were not a very safe idea. Instead of lights it had the color wheel, which was basically a little floodlight that sat on a stand on the floor with a round revolving wheel that was made of translucent plastic. As the wheel rotated the light reflecting from the tree changed. I think the color wheel on her tree eventually broke or she just quit putting it up because I’m sure there were years it didn’t have any light on it.

We helped her put it up and decorate it several times and I think it was a real pain. Each branch stored in its own cardboard tube and when you pulled it out the tinsel popped out to make it look like a silver tree branch. There were a whole lot of those little branches of varying sizes and even when you got them all on it still seemed a little sparse to me.

She used only blue glass ornaments on the tree so it looked pretty classy compared with our tree at home with multi-colored lights and homemade or giveaway ornaments on it.

My grandparent’s front room wasn’t big but I have a photo on my computer hard drive of one Christmas when I would have been about 6 where all of our cousins are crowded up on the mottled brown carpet opening Christmas presents. It doesn’t show that aluminum tree because the photographer, I assume my uncle, was standing over by the door shooting around the tree to get as many kids in the photo as possible.

The only open presents on display are a “Carnival” Bingo game being held up by Cousin Steve and a really nice doll peeking out from behind my Cousin Nancy. You can just see my cotton head over Aunt Wanda. I’m right next to Granddad Ruby’s left elbow.

I found a retro aluminum tree color wheel for $379 on Amazon. My grandmother would have fainted if she saw the price.

I could buy the tree and put it up this weekend but I could never bring all those little cousins together again on a tiny living room floor on a perfect (at least in our memory) Christmas.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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