Several years ago, 2007 to be exact, I told the story of my “ownership”, loss, and quest for another 6′, pompom, silver, aluminum Christmas tree. I won’t repeat it in detail, but you can read it here. I just reread it and it was a fun read, if I may say so myself! (That blog post was back in the day when I had a Blogger blog. Things haven’t been updated there in years.) In a nutshell, Momma had one, I hated it, wanted it later, thought I got it, but it was gold and not ours, and I’ve been on a quest ever since. This quest has gone on for 13 years.
Went to an estate sale Saturday. I only had time for one sale and I chose this one. Turned out, it was in the back yard and basement. Boxes were EVERYWHERE in the back yard. Boxes, and boxes and boxes. And boxes. And MORE boxes. People were leaning over, rummaging through. Now, I love to dig as much as the next junker, but not this time. The boxes weren’t just On the Ground, they were sitting in wet, sloppy, icky, cover your shoes MUD! Bleah! To make matters worse, you’d dig and come up with cheap, 1980’s decor. No, that combo, mud and ’80’s, really took the wind out of my sails. Besides, several friends had beat me and probably had found things of worth already. Quite discouraging.
I did get a basket of flour sacks and quilt tops and pieces and sewing paraphernalia. Who me? Sewing stuff? What a surprise! Ha! Then I realized the basement was open. You betch’a I made a beeline to the dry spot. Picked up a few more things. An old, oval, convex glass frame, a covered cake stand, can’t remember what else at the moment.
I was walking around, making sure I wasn’t missing anything when a joyful noise came from the heavens. The Angels sang. A light shown around a box. A box?
A nondescript, taped up, box that looked like it contained a modern, fake, Christmas tree. It was close to the basement entrance. Every single person there walked right past it several times. Including me. Perhaps they didn’t see the writing on top?
Oh, yeah. I grabbed that baby, hoping it wouldn’t be beyond my budget. When the seller saw it, she commented that it was such a pretty tree. They’d had it when she was a little girl. I asked how tall it was and she put her hand up above her head – about that tall. She thought about taking it home with her, but she was on a plane, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Too bad, so sad. I WANT IT! But I still didn’t ask how much. We just tallied everything I had. I offered $10 less and we had a deal.
I still had not looked inside. It could have been some other crapola in there for all I knew. Maybe it just said silver tree. Two days later – Yup. I was able to contain myself for two whole days – I opened it. These pictures were taken as I was opening. How’s that for self restraint?
I held my breath, undoing the tape and my, my, it was taped real good. Finally it opened. Was it………..???
YES! It was!! The original box is still there, too. In pieces, but kept with the tree. I don’t know if I’m completely satisfied, though. The pompom ends aren’t as full and lovely as ours were.
So this one might be replaced sometime in the future. Or maybe not. After all, it has it’s own, fun story.
We had an aluminum tree for a few years when I was a kid, with a color wheel. I loved it.
What a fantastic tree. Can’t wait to see it decorated in December.
Great find! I was helping decorate Angel’s for Christmas and found one to use in their attic. It helped me vicariously have one of my own. It was fun to put together and everyone that walked by wanted to buy it! P.S. How in the world did you find the “Carter” bottle? I think one of TC’s former girlfriends made it!!!