Decorating the Christmas Tree

I spoke with my cousin Wayne Thomas last night and we laughed about our experience of decorating Christmas trees when we were pre-teens. Recall that the Goldens and the Thomas family lived one house apart on Idylwood street in the 50’s. We always had ‘live’ ( meaning not artificial ) trees in those days. Generally my dad and my Uncle would nail some scrap lumber onto the trunk of the tree near its base to make a stand. Decorating was an event and almost always occurred at one house one day and at the other house on a different day. That meant that the kids could be part of both decorating experiences.

There was a pretty strict order in how a tree was decorated: Lights, garlands, bulbs (balls) and finally tinsel.

We kids were part of the process and could not wait for the tinsel. We wanted to throw the tinsel onto the tree - expecting a ‘bibbity bobbity boo’ miracle. Our parents wanted a ‘one strand at a time’ application of tinsel. We ended up throwing it on and achieving blobs which we, under strict parental oversight, took back off and did one strand at a time.

It was still a fun experience… Undecorating around New Years day was a semi reverse process with an attempt to remove the tinsel for reuse the next year. I do not recall the tinsel salvage to have ever worked. I think the tinsel salvage reflects the fiscal responsibility our parents learned the hard way during the depression.