A song about a Tumbleweed Christmas tree
Andy Wilkinson of Lubbock produced a Christmas CD sometime back. One song on it was titled THE TUMBLEWEED CHRISTMAS TREE. Part of the lyrics goes like this:
“Daddy put it on the dinette table,
mama made the newsprint angels, ornaments of tin foil scraps and buttons on a string,
took us all night to decorate it.
When we got done I have to say that it was the prettiest tumbleweed I’ve ever seen.”
Andy said the idea for the song came from something his grandmother did.
“She and her friends in the Eastern Star made Christmas trees out of tumbleweeds one year. I thought that was kind of interesting, that the weed might be a good symbol for being so poor that you couldn’t afford a regular Christmas tree and had to make do with a tumbleweed.”
Andy had read a national story about the oil activity in No Trees so he decided to set his song there.
“What better place to not have a Christmas tree than No Trees.”
It just so happened that a producer on NBC’S Today Show read that same article and was looking for an unusual Christmas feature. So she tried to call someone in No Trees. The only number listed was the Post Office.
“The post mistress, Milsy King, answered the phone and this woman producer told her what she was doing. Milsy happened to have a copy of my Christmas CD and told the NBC woman that if she wanted to do something about Christmas in No Trees she needed to call this fellow and she told her about me.”
The film crew came down and met Andy at the post office in No Trees.
“I walked in and there was the tumbleweed tree I had described in my song. It had a newsprint angel, ornaments of tin foil scraps, buttons on a string. I was so moved by it I told Milsy that I was honored that she had done the tree. She said her mother in law always makes their newsprint angels and went on to describe the decorations. So all that stuff I made up was really happening.”
Andy said his appearance on the Today Show was fascinating and full of coincidences. His song is played a lot around Christmas.
“It’s not like it bought me a new house or anything; in fact it barely bought me a tank of gas. But it is a song that people know and like.”