From kitsch to classic

“Get the biggest aluminum tree you can find!” advised perennial Peanuts fussbudget Lucy Van Pelt in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

While the sometimes blockheaded namesake of the 1965 animated special didn’t heed that particular piece of consumer advice, countless aluminum Christmas tree aficionados have over the decades.

Consequently, what started out in 1958 as a novel way for Manitowoc, Wisc.-based Aluminum Specialty Co. to increase its product line has turned into an annual ritual for baby boomers and their children.

Fifty Christmases later, bidding wars routinely break out on the Internet yard sale known as eBay, as aluminum tree fans jockey to pay hundreds of dollars for trees that originally retailed for $25.

The shimmering silver kitsch fests have inspired a Web site, a popular coffeetable book, “Season’s Gleamings: The Art of the Aluminum Christmas Tree” by photographers John Shimon and Julie Lindemann, and the aluminum-enriched, ironic ditty “I Bought a Plastic Star for Your Aluminum Christmas Tree” by singer-songwriter Michael Franks.

The pop culture relic is also prominently featured in one of the current retro-themed TV ads enticing grown-ups to treat each other to a Lexus this holiday season.

Quirky online catalog company Hammacher Schlemmer offers its exclusive seven-foot model for a mere $559.95. They’ll throw in the must-have rotating color wheel accessory for an additional $60.

Passed-down and post-mod

Of the trees’ enduring legacy, Wisconsin photographers and visual artists Shimon and Lindemann say this in the forward to “Season’s Gleamings”:

“Aluminum Christmas trees seemed to be at every rummage sale when we first returned to Manitowoc in 1989. The trees were usually hidden under a table of old tools and priced $1. It took us awhile to realize that they were a peculiar form of representational sculpture worth dragging back to our studio.”

But for Cumming resident Joan Baker and her five children, their vintage Aluminum Speciality Evergleam tree represents three generations of holiday memories.

Nearly 50 years ago, Baker’s husband Clyde surprised the family when he brought home the space-age treasure from a Dayton, Ohio, hardware store.

This year, the family gathered to erect the beloved tree in honor of their patriarch, who passed away this summer.

“It was a little hard putting it up this year but it contains so many wonderful memories for us,” says Joan Baker.

“The kids used to come in and say, ‘Oh no, not that thing again!’ But now that the trees are worth so much, their attitudes have changed. They keep bugging me about putting it on eBay! But we would never part with it.”

Last Christmas, Lilburn allergy sufferer Patricia Yeargin, who grew up cutting down trees in the north Georgia woods, swallowed hard and sprang for a silver spruce from Hammacher Schlemmer.

“It’s worked out great for my allergies,” Yeargin says. “Plus, I’ve always secretly wanted to own an aluminum Christmas tree.”

Yeargin also touts the eco-friendly benefits of the metal trees. She says: “I refuse to cut down an entire tree each year just to decorate my house.”

Heirlooms and ‘Frankentrees’

The six-foot Aluminum Speciality tree Virginia-Highland resident David Paule’s parents purchased in 1962 is the first tree he remembers as a kid. When he was a toddler, the tree also helped to provide a very valuable lesson about electricity when his older brother put the power leads of his new Lionel train set into Paule’s mouth as he sat under the tree.

Consequently, Paule knows not to string lights on the same tree he inherited in 1999 from his parents. And he tolerates the tree’s aging color wheels, which now operate “as quietly as your average diesel truck.”

The tree represents a lifelong holiday tradition for Paule, even if it stalls the flow of traffic at his annual holiday party.

“People tend to become mesmerized by it and everyone ends up in the den,” explains Paule. “We now know to put the bar as far away from the aluminum tree as possible!”

For Decatur resident Odette Schuler, her family’s vintage “Frankentree” (comprised of parts from three different trees found at yard sales, thrift stores and attics) is a way to simplify the holidays when they travel for Christmas.

Says Schuler: “We put it up with some unbreakable tin ornaments and we can go away and not worry about watering it or our pets destroying it. Some of our friends raise an eyebrow when they see it, thinking it’s some bizarre novelty, but most people who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s get it and enjoy it.”