Created in the late 1950's, and popular in the 1960's, shiny aluminum trees were a showpiece. Especially paired with the Color Wheel!
When I was a kid, every year when the Christmas decorations would go up, we would go through the painstaking ritual of carefully removing each shiny branch from it's paper sleeve and inserting it into a slot on the tree's center pole. Usually this job went to me.
Putting it up was exciting! Taking it down, not so much . . .
Next came the ornaments!
Some families created a color scheme for their tree (like the photo below with red ornaments, or the next photo with all green ornaments.)
Our tree usually had a variety of different-colored ornaments that we had purchased each year during the after-Christmas sales.
The Color Wheel was an additional purchase. It rotated and cast an array of beautiful color onto the aluminum tree.
Once the tree and the decorations were complete, we could start adding the presents underneath the tree. I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor in front of that aluminum tree looking at the presents, shaking them, and trying to guess what was inside each one!
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