Welcome Christmas
Textile Tree with Vintage Buttons
The first Saturday of December is when we begin unpacking my collection of Christmas trees for display in the house and patio. A few years ago there were over 200 trees but like most serious collectors of anything, I’ve gleaned the collection down to just the best examples and began by dumping the largest tree of the collection – a seven-footer that had to be hand strung with lights and ornaments. That’s ok because there still remain examples whose sizes range from one-half inch to 4-foot… and I wasn’t able to delete as many trees as I thought so there still remain almost 200 trees. (Note to self: cultivate more “detachment” so the collection can slowly reduce in size and I won’t be too bummed to let them go.)
The tree collection began in 1971 when my son was just one year old and the nation was in the midst of an energy crunch. Determined to adjust our behavior for the benefit of society and our budget, I decided to forgo a lit tree and my mother came unglued… that baby boy needed to see a lit Christmas tree so she made us a small ceramic tree lit by a single bulb. I refused to plug it in but loved the tree.
We still have the tiny ceramic tree – still lit by a single bulb – and in a roundabout way to satisfy my mother’s desire to create a collection for me, the Christmas tree collection began.
Mother collects everything – from state plates to dolls; porcelain creamers to baskets; military uniforms to gingerbread people and snowmen. I resisted collecting anything, choosing instead a Spartan, Zen-ish home environment… until those Christmas trees. Not only did I collect a new or vintage or thrift-shop specimen annually – but friends and loved ones gleefully added to the collection as well. So frankly, it was very easy to end up with over 200 Christmas trees.
The original goal was to land a single example of every medium… paper, plastic, wood, metal, glass… if an artist could shape it into a tree I wanted it.
My baby sister’s tiny fingerprints are enshrined in a clay model, created when she was in kindergarten and gifted to my mother that Christmas forty-five years ago. A little, ancient toll-booth operator in Chicago-land gifted me his hand-made particle-wood version as I admired it in the snow one year… I’m forever grateful I needed change at the booth that day so I could meet the old man who made those toll-booths merry and bright with his handiwork.
And yes, there is at least a single example of every medium in the collection today… paper, plastic, wood, metal, glass, corn-husk, crocheted and stitched.
Today we lit the little ceramic tree after installation… and plan to light every other version that can and should light because Chuck and Mother both have bone marrow cancer and Dana died this year with bone marrow cancer and sometimes you just need to see a lit Christmas tree.
