

We complemented it with a new color wheel (alas, it’s imported) that brings me back to my childhood.īut this is better. We put up our Evergleam on the day after Thanksgiving. In the birthplace of Evergleam, they celebrate Manitowac Aluminum Kitsch-mas, which includes a downtown display of the trees dubbed “Evergleams on Eighth.” (You also can buy a copy of the book directly from Georges on eBay he’ll sign it for you, too, if you ask.) “Aluminum Specialty was to aluminum trees what the Ford Motor Company was to automobiles,” taking a good idea and making it great, according to “The Evergleam Book,” by Theron Georges.

It wasn’t the only source of aluminum trees - Arandell Products, for instance, made Silver Glow trees in Philadelphia - but the most famous.Īluminum Specialty turned the aluminum Christmas tree that a company called Modern Coatings had developed as a department store prop into a consumer product. RGB LED Flood Lights, 10W Color Changing Outdoor Spotlight with Remote Control, IP65 Waterproof Wall Washer Light,16 Color s 4 Modes Dimmable Stage Lighting with US 3-Plug. made 100,000 to 150,000 Evergleams every year. Vintage Spartus Model 880 Rotating Color Wheel s For Aluminum Christmas Tree. (Cooler still, some of the glass ornaments adorning it were made by a company called Paragon in Lewiston, Maine, where I was born.) The Ford of aluminum trees So our six-foot, 43-branch Evergleam tree, manufactured sometime between 19 in Manitowac, Minn., is making its debut for us this holiday season. We wanted an authentic U.S.-made aluminum tree, which I acquired on eBay just after Christmas 2020. From kitchen to bathroom, paint colors to artwork, we’ve tried to be true to that vintage spirit. Color Wheel 20 TreeTronics Color Wheel 20 For Vintage Aluminum Christmas Tree Mid Century Modern Artificial Retro MCM XMAS Silver. Complete your tree display with a vintage color wheel and you will have a holiday memory in the making. In 2020, we moved into downtown Hershey, where we are renovating a 1931 bungalow that needed some love but was historically intact. Color wheels were popular back in the 1960s for lighting aluminum christmas trees. We haven’t had a fresh tree since we started Stay Apparel in 2017, wishing to protect our inventory but perhaps overstating the risk of spiders jumping from tree to tee. While my wife, Sara, and I always had fresh trees, we picked up a cheap imported silver tree approximately 15 years ago and still use it. Sorry, Charlie, but the silver tree remained cool to me.
ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE WITH COLOR WHEEL TV
It was a source of pride for me that the silver aluminum Christmas tree with the mesmerizing color wheel projecting onto it in Memere and Pepere’s family room had once been owned by my parents, before they switched to natural trees.Īluminum trees already were in declining popularity by this time, mocked as a symbol of over-commercialization as they were in the 1965 TV special, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

When I was a child in the 1970s, Christmas Eve was spent in the cramped confines of my maternal grandparents’ home.
