Christmas Tree

If I had my way, I would have decorated our Christmas tree the week after Thanksgiving. My mother made the most beautiful snow flocked trees I’ve ever seen. Before starting on the tree, she would cut aluminum foil into squares for each light bulb. My older sister and I would sit at the kitchen table and wrap every bulb on the strands of lights with the foil. My dad trimmed the tree’s truck and even took a couple of the drooping bottom branches to wire in a big hole somewhere else. Mom would string the lights all through the tree, back in the gaping holes out to the tips. She was a pro at concealing all the wires in the needles.

The next step was to saturate the whole tree with water. Then she had to quickly blow the white flocking material onto the tree before the water dripped off. She worked like a woman possessed to achieve a full even coverage.

After the tree was flocked, my sister and I proceeded to hunt and remove every one of the bulb’s foil caps. We would search and search, count and recount the caps, but would always miss one. My dad would struggle getting the tree inside without breaking any bulbs or knocking the white flocking off.

Finally the tree was inside and ready for the angel top. Mom strung the blue and green tinsel rope on while my sister and I hung the red ornaments. The tinsel was a match to our living room’s décor.  Finally, the tree was ready for the presents.

One year we had an unusual cold spell and my mom had to wear her thick winter coat as she worked on the tree. It was only a few minutes after we got the tree inside when we heard a drip, then several more. When mom had soaked the tree the water had frozen shortly after. She rushed downstairs to retrieve a drop cloth. For the next hour we listened to the tree raining on the plastic cloth. To this day I’m not sure why the flocking hadn’t fallen off the needles with the water. There were plenty of reasons why it should, but I guess there was some compound in the flocking to make it stay adhered to the tree.

Now that everything was done, we would plug in the lights. We would all search along the strands trying to find the one bulb still covered with foil. You had to have patience as each light flashed on and off at its own pace. Eventually someone would spot the trace of colored light peeking out from under the foil cap. Now my parents could rest easy knowing the foil wouldn’t short out the bulb and start a fire.

As the lights flashed independent of each other, they created splotches of white, yellow, red, green, and blue on the pale blue living room walls throwing the tree’s needles into dark silhouettes. The colors would be here and there and in combinations all over the walls and ceiling as the lights illuminated and went off. The patterns never repeated with the ever changing lights. I would spend hours laying on the floor near the tree or just under the edge of the bottom branches watching the changing patterns. To this day I have rarely found anything as relaxing. I was thankful that my parents let us keep the tree up until around New Year’s. Now I know how much my dad worried about the tree getting too dry, but we all enjoyed the snowy tree.

Happy Holidays
Donna Kunkel