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Twister!: Tony Curci, brother of Cookie, designed and painted this modernistic Christmas tree, the latest to adorn the Curci household.
Photograph courtesy of Cookie Curci-Wright
Remember When
The ever-changing Christmas tree
By Cookie Curci-Wright
According to Reader's Digest, our nation's largest Christmas tree grows in Kings Canyon in California. The grand sequoia stands 267 feet high and is decorated every Christmas.
The tree in Rockefeller Center in New York City is usually several stories high and one of New York's most popular tourist attractions. But the holiday Christmas tree seen by most people, thanks to television, is the one outside the White House in Washington, D.C., which the president of the United States lights each holiday season.
Through the years, we've seen our favorite holiday trees pass through a spectrum of color and decorative changes. We've seen the green branches of a Scotch pine flocked white, the spruce tree painted pink and the regal balsam fir sprayed green again, depending on the whims of the trendsetters. The holiday Christmas tree has been spritzed with canned glitter and frosted white with artificial snow. It has been smothered in tinsel and buried under a sea of sentimental ornaments. It has been lovingly set aglow with lighted candles, bubble lights, flood lamps and tiny rotation bulbs.
In 1955, many American households ditched their traditionally decorated tree in favor of the latest fashion trend: The fluorescent spray-painted tree. Someone had the whimsical idea to paint their tree to match their house: salmon-pink trees to accent a pink house, azure trees to complement a blue house and white trees that turned rainbow-colored, thanks to a flood lamp and a motorized plastic color wheel.
Looking back on those rainbow-colored trees, they all seem a bit silly, but not nearly as silly as the style that followed them in the late 1950s: the aluminum Christmas tree. The aluminum Christmas tree was probably the most impersonal tree to decorate our homes. During the day, this tin-barbed, frigid, metallic tree stood in our living rooms without lights or decoration. How we ever believed this cheerless tree had a place in our warm and cozy holiday season is beyond me.
Eventually, Americans came to their senses and returned to the traditional green tree. Once again, families hauled out their treasured ornaments from the safety of the back closet or the attic, where they had been kept for years. And once again, Dad checked out the string lights for frayed wiring while expressing his annual displeasure at a burned out blurb that always caused the whole string of lights to go out. In order to discover which light was dead, it was necessary to test each one individually until the offending light bulb was found. Somehow, it was always the very last bulb he tested--poor Dad.
The mock green tree soon came along and has been gaining in popularity since the 1970s. Because I was tired of vacuuming up pine needles dropped by my fresh tree, I decided to try one of these nature impostors. I soon discovered, to my chagrin, that these artificial trees drop fake needles with the same frequency as real trees. At least with the fresh tree, I was treated to the wonderful fragrance of pine.
I admit to becoming a bit extravagant and somewhat frivolous when it comes to decorating the family Christmas tree. And like a lot of people, in order to keep up with the hottest-selling items and trends, I continually invest in new lights and ornaments. I believe it's just as important to begin new traditions as it is to preserve old ones.
There are times, however, when I realize that no matter how hard I try or how much money I spend, I can never recapture the old-fashioned trees from my childhood or the wonderful memories: how the whole family directed and advised Dad on the exact placement of the string lights; the way we'd all pitch in to hide the coiled cord and wires among the tree branches; and the artistry and patience involved in placing tinsel strands, one at a time, over each branch. I miss that dilapidated old tin star that used to teeter precariously at the very top of our Christmas tree, placed there every year by the tallest person in the room--our Christmas tree engineer, Dad.
This holiday season, my relatives and friends seem to be divided on the choice and style of their family tree. The excitement of the coming millennium has set off a desire to either cling passionately to old traditions or to welcome the new century with modernistic fervor.
Whatever tree-loving Americans decide on this season, modern or traditional, one thing is certain: Despite the hectic holiday punctuated by endless trips to the mall and out-of-town visitors, we will always find time to decorate our holiday trees. Each year, the Christmas tree, like the holiday season, brings us the joy of renewal, and this holiday is likely to be well etched in our memories. And even though we don't live at the North Pole, drive a sleigh or twinkle with stardust, we still manage to create a little genuine Christmas magic right here at home.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
