If you have ever seen the movie A Christmas Story, you know what I mean when I say:  “Every family has their own version of a leg-lamp”.  It just may not actually BE a leg-lamp.  For some people, its the creepy shelf elf, or some Christmas cookie platter your distant aunt gave you from her attic, something you put out out of obligation, not because you really like it.  For my family, ours was an Aluminum Christmas tree.

I grew up just down the street from my mothers parents.  To give a bit of background, my mom was a middle daughter of 4 daughters.  One of them passed away at age 12 (my mom will forever say she was the favorite) and the other two married people who my grandfather did not approve of and ended up quickly divorced.  While my grandfather didn’t approve of my father initially, he grew to love my father and helped my parents out when they were first married.  Ocoassionally, he would gift my parents things to help make their house a home.  A beautiful Cherry hutch, a Cherry dresser and one time, it was an Aluminum Christmas tree.

The tree was made up of an aluminum pole that stood about 5 1/2 feet tall and had holes all up and down the pole.  In each of these holes, an aluminum branch would fit in, the longer ones on the bottom and moving up to the smaller ones on the top (similar to the modern day artificial trees).  The tree itself sat in a stand that not only rotated the tree, but it played music too.  The tree with the stand was placed on a 2-piece mirror  that was about 6 feet in diameter.  And to top it off, my grandfather had also given us Pink and Blue ornaments to decorate the tree.  Why Pink and Blue?  Why, to go with the Pink and Blue spotlights that shone on the tree, of course!

This was a tree that you simply could not hide.  If you were to stand out in front of our house at Christmastime and looked at our picture window, there would be our own personal “Leg Lamp.  A Silver Aluminum Christmas Tree, decorated with only large Pink and Blue ornaments, lit only by a Pink spotlight on one side and a Blue spotlight on the other side, rotating on a musical stand.

As I think about it now, I imagine what this gift meant to my grandfather.  A man who raised his kids during the depression, and  pulled himself out of it to have a comfortable living, this was like buying her a Cadillac.

I applaud my mother for continuing to try to make that tree special for our family.  She tried to honor him by putting it up each year even though I knew she secretly hated it.

Its now 50 years later and as I walk through some of the stores at Christmas, there are trees in all kinds of colors.  Pink, Blue, Green, White.  But never Silver……….you never see Silver…….