A 1930’s Christmas Tree

With all the pretty Christmas trees of today, I can’t help but think of how we did it when I was growing up.  As you already know, I write about old days and old ways.’

All year we would watch for a cedar growing in the area that would make a nice size Christmas tree and when the time came my daddy would sharpen the ax and hack the tree down – bringing it home on a ground slid pulled by a mule.  He had his own way of making a stand using 6″ boards crossed.  We used an old quilt for a tree skirt and then the decorating began.  Meager as it was, decorating the tree was an exciting time for a little girl.

For several days before we brought the tree home I would be having fun getting ready with new decorations which consisted of sweet gum balls dipped in flour and water to make them white.  They were our ornaments.  If I happened to have construction paper, I would cut that in little strips, making circles gluing each together with flour and water glue.  With the circles I made another garland.  We always had a saved star for the top.  I would dream of having lighted candles on the tree (I had seen pictures) and talked about it; however, Daddy nixed that idea because of the danger of fire.  We had no electricity — therefore, no lights.

From year to year trimmings were saved.  I can’t remember any ornaments, but we saved tinsel by wrapping it around a piece of cardboard.  Red roping was another garland we saved.  Icicles  were also saved and imagine trying to get them separated.  They were the last thing put on the tree and what a mess that was — one soon got tired of trying to get them off one by one and we’d throw a wad on the tree at once and that looked bad, too.  We usually had some holly and mistletoe in the house because it grew in the area.

We usually put the tree up two weeks prior to Christmas and, of course, it would dry out and we’d have oodles of mess to clean up when we took it down. It’s just memories of another day and time with that kind of country living.