Christmas trees, originally a German custom, became popular when German immigrants came to America, and when Queen Victoria's German husband, Prince Albert, put up Christmas trees for the royal family. Over time, the fad led to a shortage of fresh trees in Germany, and people began making artificial trees out of feathers. In the US, the reason we started using artificial trees was that a real Christmas tree festooned with candles or hot incandescent lights was liable to burn the house down.
Quite a few people tried designing a Christmas tree that wouldn't catch fire, but they didn't look much like the real thing. And then a brush company that made everything from toothbrushes to toilet brushes got involved. The same technology that produced toilet brushes made artificial trees look fluffy enough. So we can thank toilet brushes for the look of our modern Christmas trees. Read how all this came about, including some odd failed patents, at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: SeppVei)
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That's what my grandparents' tree was. At five I thought it was the most beautiful thing on earth. Why did we have to cut down a real tree when theirs was so beautiful? Then at ten I thought it was the tackiest thing I'd ever seen.
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Just for a bit of clarification, my MIL grew up in extreme poverty in West Virginia so her idea of elegance and class tended towards glitter and rhinestones and red flocked bathroom wallpaper which my mother said belonged in a whorehouse's restroom. Years ago my MIL bought a tinsel type of Xmas tree. It was white and it came with a plastic wheel you placed in front of the tree which was sectioned into 4 different transparent colors of cellophane that slowly spun in a circle with a light bulb that shone through the wheel so the tree was constantly changing color every 15 seconds or so. She placed it in front of the big living room picture window for all to see. At least it wasn't a plastic leg with a fringed lampshade. Tacky, tacky, tacky.
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