One of the most cherished things about Christmas is making it come alive in your home with decorations and traditions. I believe, like many Southerners, that the best holiday decor items are the ones that you remember from your childhood—candles illuminated in windows, a Putz village on the mantle, and even the occasional ceramic Christmas tree on the counter.
While bringing those classic items into your own home is still just as charming, others aren’t quite so. In fact, there’s one retro holiday decor trend I’m happy to leave back in its era a few decades ago: aluminum Christmas trees.
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What Are Aluminum Christmas Trees?
Introduced in the late 1950s as the first manufactured artificial Christmas tree, aluminum Christmas trees—made of tinsel-style metallic bristles—soared into popularity through the 1960s, matching some of the colorful, whimsical, and statement-making styles of the decade. Since they require no watering and can be stored, it was marketed as a savvy alternative with extra flair, especially when paired with the rotating color wheel lights that projected its metallic splendor throughout the room.
However, rumor also has it that the 1965 airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas reinforced the desire for real Christmas trees. And since then, these metallic trees have teetered in and out as a micro-trend every so often.
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Why Aluminum Christmas Trees Belong in the Past
As fun as the retro photos of old-fashioned aluminum Christmas trees might seem at a glance, I cannot pretend to wish for their return. Perhaps a tiny, shiny tabletop variation, but not the tall, spiky trees that would be reflected like a disco ball in the living room with a rotating color wheel light. It takes over a whole holiday decor scheme with a garish metallic spotlight, and it doesn’t always store well and can look less-than-shiny over time.
While I’m all for a retro holiday decor theme, I lean decidedly more towards the warm, cozy, classic side of bows, plaids, and a lot of robust reds and greens. I love dried orange slices, Spode china, and even shiny-brite ornaments. And even my grandmother—who still has all of her old-school decor and long ago even had an aluminum tree—fully agrees: “That thing was a hassle and the metallic didn’t match anything!”
While I can get behind a whimsical tabletop tinsel tree or a bit of old-fashioned tinsel sprinkled amongst your fir branches, I stand firm as a traditional green Christmas tree believer.
