O Metal Tree

Tim Bass is coordinator of UNCW’s bachelor of fine arts program in creative writing.

When I was a kid, my family never took Currier & Ives trips to a Christmas tree lot, where we’d scurry about in scarves and mittens, each of us searching for the perfect Fraser fir.

For one thing, my small southeastern North Carolina hometown didn’t have tree lots.

If you wanted “real” trees, you found them in just one place: on the sidewalk of the Piggly Wiggly, propped against the brick wall or tied with twine to the poles that supported the awning.

Plus, it was the ’60s. Who needed a natural tree when you could have an artificial one?

So every December, my mother risked her orthopedic safety by climbing the flimsy stairs to the attic and dragging down a dusty cardboard box that held a glimmering season of magic and wonder: our aluminum Christmas tree.

All silver and twinkly, this thing grew to maturity in the forest of an Alcoa factory.

It stood six feet tall, supported by a tripod base and a hollow metal trunk that would’ve doubled as a spontoon when the communists invaded. Thin metal spikes formed the branches, each adorned with slivers of aluminum that looked like someone had run a roll of foil through a paper shredder. The shiny strips curved under their own slight weight, jiggling and making a joyful tinkling noise as we unloaded the box.

Some assembly was required. We slipped the ends of the branches into tiny holes bored through the trunk, using the longer ones on the bottom and finishing with short stems for a perfect inverted cone. It took about two minutes and involved no wobbly stands, spilled water, trails of fallen needles, dribbles of sap, or indoor sawing.

The worst that could happen was that my older brother, Nick, might swat one of us with a branch, but my mother had effective methods for putting a stop to that.

All the metal made for a sturdy and fire-resistant structure, even if the whole thing weighed just ten pounds and could be moved with a single hand. We loaded it with delicate baubles in red and green, plus a few knitted reindeer and a plastic snowflake here and there. Because we were not tall people and didn’t own a ladder, we did our best with the angel, perching her on top and tilting our heads in unison to agree that she seemed, well, straight enough.

The best part was the color wheel: a blistering-hot spotlight that shone through a “roto wheel” of tinted panels. Every half-minute, the tree’s mood changed from gold to crimson to emerald. It was like having three Christmas trees.

These days, we hear such noise about Christmas – endless yelping over the push of commerce, the pull of religion, and the supposed neutrality of government. No one can doubt, though, that in one way or another, the holidays bring light, powerful and poignant.

I don’t know what became of our aluminum tree, but even today I remember how it sparked anticipation and glowed with possibility.

The kid in me still loves that. The adult in me does, too.

To view more of illustrator Mark Weber’s work, go to www.markweberart.blogspot.com.