It is Christmas night and my house is finally quiet and still, smells of holiday food still linger in the air and the laughter of my family echoes in my mind. It has been a very good day, but sometimes sleep plays hide and seek with me during the holidays……so much to do; so many things to remember. Even though it is late and I am bone tired, sleep has gone out to play. Just as I settle in with a cozy new comforter and a good book, the shiny, shimmering Christmas tree in the corner catches my eye. I lay my book aside as favorite holiday memories click through my mind like a View Master. Memories of a blue and silver Christmas.
I remember Christmas 1963. I was lying in the floor in front of the television watching Mr. Ed (the Christmas episode where Mr. Ed, the talking horse, saves Christmas) waiting on my daddy to get home so that we could go cut down our Christmas tree. It was our first Christmas in our new house on Camille Street and everything in our house was new – including the RCA color television that my mother repeatedly told me would cause me to go blind if I kept getting too close to it.
My little sister, baby brother and I were really excited about Christmas that year. My daddy had a good job, we were living in a brand new house and my mama had a new car. We were living big in our small town of Senatobia, MS.
The back door opened and in came my daddy, dragging in a big, rectangular box. He lifted me up into his arms and I traced the name embroidered on his work shirt with my finger. Ernest. Because of this daily routine, his name was one of the first words I learned to spell. I loved the smell of my daddy in the winter time – a mixture of Old Spice aftershave, cigarettes and frosty weather.
Daddy pulled the big box into the living room while my mother, a 110 pound cleaning machine, was torn between finding out what was in the box and trying to stop whatever mess her husband was about to make. On the side of the box, in big green letters, was the word EVERGLEAM.
Daddy gently lowered the box to the floor and with his pearl-handled pocket knife, he cut the flaps of the box open so that Mama and I could see the treasure inside.
Mounds of shiny silver – aluminum, to be exact – spilled from the box. Daddy bought us a 7 ft. tall aluminum Christmas tree – complete with a rotating color wheel that projected colored lights up through the tree from the floor.
No mess, he explained to my skeptical mother. No allergy problems for my asthmatic sister, he told her, pulling out a long, wooden stick that would serve as the “tree base”. He pushed the stick tree into a metal tripod tree stand and began putting the tree together. Each aluminum tree branch was protected in a brown paper sleeve with just the pompom-ends sticking out like a silver feather duster. Daddy stuck each branch into a pre-drilled hole in the wooden tree, starting at the top of the tree and working his way to the bottom.
He opened a second, smaller box and out came a little machine that looked much like a small box fan with a colored screen over the blades – red, green, yellow, and blue plastic. He plugged the color wheel in and directed it toward the tree. He told us to close our eyes and he turned off the living room light.
Viola!! There before us was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. A magnificent, glittering tree changing colors right before our eyes. Red, green, yellow, blue – SILVER! Beautiful, stunning.
There were over 1 million of the aluminum trees sold between 1960 and 1969 – but I’m pretty sure we were about the only family in Senatobia with one in 1963.
I will never forget my daddy’s face in the light of the tree. Young and handsome, his black hair slicked back with Brylcreem, green eyes shining with adventure, still in his Wonder Bread delivery man’s uniform, he was so excited to bring something new and modern to our home. Always ahead of his time, a pioneer of sorts, he suggested that we put only blue Christmas balls on the tree. He put up blue lights all around our house and placed a blue, frosted Christmas wreath on the door.
“Why blue?” my mother asked. “Because it’s not red or green,” he answered.
When members of the Senatobia Garden Club came by to judge for the Best Christmas Decorations contest, my mother pulled the curtains on our living room picture window wide open so that they could see our silver tree in all its glory. My parents hid just out of sight of the judges, giggling like teenagers on their first date, and watched as car after car came by Camille Street to take a look at the magnificent display.
My daddy’s decorations won “Best Overall Christmas Theme” that year even though we were not sure what our theme really was. Daddy sat the little trophy beside our tree and did not move it until he had to make room for Santa’s gifts to his three children.
Santa certainly had no trouble finding us – I’m sure our house could be seen from heaven. Gail and I got a Chatty Cathy doll, Easy Bake Oven and an array of Barbie stuff, including Allan, Ken’s new best friend.
After Christmas, we carefully slipped each branch of the aluminum tree back into the paper cylinders and placed everything back into the box. I believe we used the tree one more year before all of us decided that we wanted to go back to the traditional green tree with its tangle of lights, falling needles and aromatic allergens. I don’t know what happened to the tree, but every detail of that platinum memory remains etched into my heart.
Pretty much everything I know about life, I learned from my dad. Things like the fact that change is not only inevitable but also vital. That failure is not the worst thing that can happen to you – not trying is. That being different makes you interesting. That the saddest four words in life are What Could Have Been. That being true to yourself doesn’t mean that you can’t strive to do better, be better. That you have to reach out and grab most good things in life. That there are no wrong decisions, just different opportunities. That we should never just follow the same old path, but blaze a new trail.
After I was grown with a home of my own, I began searching for a silver tree. They are very difficult to find, especially the large, pompom-ended ones. A few years ago, my dear friend, Judy Beard, gave me her silver aluminum tree – still in the original box, an exact replica of the 1963 tree of my childhood.
Each year I carefully take each branch out of its brown protective paper wrapping and place them in the holes on the wooden tree, starting at the top and working my way down. I turn off the lights, place the vintage color wheel in front of the tree, plug it in. I watch as the silvery glow turns red, then green, yellow and then blue.
And, I think of my daddy. It makes me smile.
