“Christmas Trees ”

By

Gerry Niskern

When I was a kid the minute I opened my eyes on Christmas morning, somewhere around dawn, and sniffed pungent, pine in the air, I knew it was there. My sister and I raced bare-footed down freezing stairs. Santa had come with presents and….a tree. It appeared magically in our living room each Christmas morning in glorious splendor, complete with large, colored lights, shiny ornaments and tons of icicles.
All types of trees at Christmases have come and gone. I remember when the enterprising tree salesmen started flocking trees, for a little extra charge. Everyone had to have one of those beautiful “snow” covered beauties. I have a friend who grew up in the Philippines who remembers trying to create a similar type tree. She says that when she was a little girl and wanted a Christmas tree her brothers went out and found a large tree branch, striped it, painted it white and glued little globs of cotton all over the branches. Then she decorated her “snowy tree”.
Once there were trees that “snowed”! The snowflakes blew out the top of the tree and settled gently down on the branches. The rest fell into a large cone at the bottom and were shot up inside the trunk to “snow” again. That fad didn’t last too long.
Then came the aluminum trees? They were one of the first put-together trees. The branches were inserted into the trunk, putting slot A into A, B into B, etc. You couldn’t hang lights on that tree; it came with a revolving multi-colored spotlight. I know a couple who were stationed in Saudi Arabia a years ago. As Christmas neared her mother shipped them an aluminum tree. Over the holidays they invited an Arabian family to share their traditional celebration. The only problem was all the little Arabian boys kept taking the aluminum branches out of the tree to play sword fighting!
Another Marine couple told me of being stationed on Okinawa and going scuba diving quite often. Once they spotted a beautiful chunk of coral shaped exactly like a Christmas tree. They managed to get it up and take it home. They soaked and cleaned it in the bathtub for a week, built a base for it and decorated it for their Christmas celebration. Wherever they were transferred, over the years, the coral tree remained part of their Christmas.
There used to be a huge yuletide tree in downtown Phoenix every Christmas. The city workers placed the magnificent fir atop a large box like platform in the middle of the intersection of Washington Street and Central Avenue. The traffic that traveled Washington passed by on either side.
Our best Christmas tree of all was the one we had after we became parents. One evening we set out with a lean pocket book but determination to buy our
three month old baby daughter her first tree. The Dairy Queen owner on West Van Buren always filled his empty parking lot with fresh evergreens. All the young couples in our crowd were on a tight budget, and our friends warned us, “Be
firm; never pay the price on the ticket.”
Of course, we fell in love with a beautiful tree that carried a hefty price tag. We circled and checked the lot again. Then we agonized and refigured our budget. Imagine our surprise and delight when we approached the vendor with our chosen tree and my young husband asked in the most firm and forceful voice he could muster, “Is that price the best you can do?”
“If it’s for that tiny baby girl, there’s no charge.” the vendor replied. And Merry Christmas to both of you.”