Faux firs: New trends in Christmas trees
COMMENTARY
“Is it worth getting a new one?” he wanted to know. It’s a standard question around here.
“Yes, in tree-light technology alone,” I said. Any man who has ever put lights on a Christmas tree knows the value of that.
I remembered the quantum leap forward that this tree had been over the fake fir that preceded her. The prior tree I also had for seven or eight years, and might still have today had my former husband not unceremoniously tossed it in a trash bin, a regrettable event I won’t even mention. That tree had colorcoded tiers of branches that had to be inserted into brackets in the trunk, and was not pre-lit.
Christmas tree lights are the number one cause of divorce. Case in point.
Anyway, the sequel to the dumped tree, was a pre-lit (cue the angel chorus) Fraser Fir from Balsam Hill, the brand my designer friends recommended, and I could see why. Its realisticlooking branches unfolded like Mary Poppins’s umbrella, and stacked in three easy sections faster than you could say fa-la-lala-la.
To find out what further improvements had happened in the eight intervening years, I called Balsam Hill headquarters in Redland City, California.
“Consumers are leaning toward more organic-looking, asymmetrical trees,” said Mac Harman, who founded Balsam Brands in 2006. “For years consumers have wanted full, perfectly shaped trees, with no gaps, but trees don’t grow that way.”
Harman travels the world snipping tree branches and snapping tree photos to bring back to mimic, he tells me.
While the company still sells plenty of full, symmetrical trees, the trend is toward “trees that have arms shooting off unevenly, and are not as dense,” Harman said. They leave more room for ornaments and show some trunk, which has long been a no-no.”
Improvements in tree lighting is driving the second big trend. Just as in our homes, LED lights are changing how we light our Christmas trees. They are replacing incandescent lights (which are glass), burn hot, break easily and can trip fires. Encased in hard plastic, LED lights stay cool, are