As I was setting out some Christmas decorations this past weekend, I started thinking about the oldest one I owned. It happens to be this Christmas tree, which is celebrating its 55th birthday this season.
When it is plugged in, it shines a variety of colors – yellow, green, and red. It also combines colors to provide a multi-colored display. Many years later, it has become rather brittle and fragile. It still works although rather unpredictably. Instead of a regular sequence of colors, it operates randomly.
In 1965 I remember Mom wanting to go shopping at a store called Treasure Island a day or two after Christmas to look through the Christmas clearance items. To give you some perspective, Treasure Island in my hometown of Appleton, WI, was a discount outlet for the nicest department store in town – H.C. Prange’s (pronounced Prang-ees). Some of the locals referred to the outlet as Trash Island because the items weren’t always of the best quality.
Once we found this tree in the store, Mom just needed to buy it. As I recall, it cost $7 or $8, which was a lot of money at that time. Here are some still pictures of it at night when the house is dark.
The view above is rarely seen. I was able to capture it at just the right moment.
My favorite though, is definitely the reddish-pinkish one above. The two below come up only randomly in the sequence.
So what is your oldest holiday decoration? Post your answers below. Have a merry season!
We used to love Treasure Island! After it closed Prange’s opened a different outlet store 1 mile further east near Kmart. My sister worked as a co-op student at Treasure Island, and my Dad worked at Kmart!
One if our oldest Christmas decorations is a ceramic tree with about 50 micro holes that hold multicolored, mini, plastic “lights”. There is a clear light bulb inside the tree, illuminating the mini “lights”, making them appear to be real. It’s always beautiful, but the best part is that about 45 years ago it was glazed (from greenware) by one of Pete’s aunts, who is now deceased. We always have a way to remember her!
I wish I could post a picture of it!
Maybe we had moved by the time that the second outlet store was there on College Avenue. I love those old Christmas decorations. What a wonderful way to remember Pete’s aunt.