Ah yes, the old color wheel....

Pappy

Pappy

Living the Dream
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Moved back to NY from Florida. 🤓 2025
Might as well start bringing up Christmas stories, as it will be here soon enough. One year, my folks bought an aluminum Christmas tree. :what1: Then they purchased a color wheel, just like this one.

PS....I hated that stupid tree.

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When I was a teenager our neighbors had a silver aluminum tree with plain blue ornaments and a color wheel instead of traditional lights.

I remember thinking that was the coolest Christmas tree ever.

Now I much prefer a homey/homely Christmas tree covered with memories of family and friends.

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I have a friend who STILL uses those. I guess she inherited the tree and color wheel from her parents.
 

AZ Jim said:
As a kid y Dad experimented with Christmas trees. We had the color wheel and several other variations of gadgets but the silliest one I recall was tree vibrator. You attached it to the bottom of the trunk and turned it on and it shook hell out of the tree. I must admit. We only tried that one year. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2015/12/23/10647682/11-weird-christmas-patents-inventions
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A shaking tree? There wouldn't be a needle left on it by December 26...…

I've always wondered why they didn't have tinsel in a can like Silly String. Even strokes up and down and side by side and that thing would be done!

They do have electric rotating Christmas tree stands. It would really make it easy to put on the lights and garland. Just stand there and play it out while the tree rotates. And you could just stand in one spot and stick ornaments on as it goes past. Afterward, you can just reverse it and peel the lights and garland off as the tree rotates. Besides, it would give your dog some good exercise while he goes round and round the tree trying to find a stationary place to whizz on.

Remember spray-on snow? Beside spraying it on the tree, you could use stencils and spray stars, wreaths, Santas, reindeer, etc. on the windows. The big problem was that after being on the window for 2-3 weeks, it had baked to a concrete-like consistency and almost needed to be taken off by a razor blade. My mother banned spray-on snow after a couple of years.
 
You can still buy the Noma bubble lights - $23 for a box of 7 on Amazon. Back when we still put up trees, I really liked the old traditional Christmas tree lights.
 
Way back in the early 80's, we'd bought our first house in Niagara Falls (Cdn. side). Our neighbour on one side was a widowed senior lady. She made us a gift of her silver tinsel tree and colour wheel, and all-red ornaments. We'd traditionally gotten live trees from Xmas tree farms, but didn't want to insult her ... so, we set up the silver tree and colour wheel in the sun-room at the front of the house. It did look very pretty. When we moved, we donated it (with her blessings) to the Eventide Salvation Army home for seniors. A women's club I belonged to, set it up in the lobby and it delighted the residents.

I was mesmerized by those bubble lights as a kid. My late in-laws had kept their ancient artificial Xmas tree and old lights. It probably only had about a dozen branches, and looked more like a cactus. I loved the old decorations and still have some of them.
 
I can't imagine why you'd want a shaking Christmas tree. That's just weird.

I do remember the rotating tree color wheel thing. My folks got one one year -- we didn't like it, and so it got given away right after Christmas.
 
Never had a color wheel when I was a kid but I do remember those long strings of lights where one bulb goes out and they all go out and you spend hours trying to find the burnt out one
 
Pappy said:
Might as well start bringing up Christmas stories, as it will be here soon enough. One year, my folks bought an aluminum Christmas tree. :what1: Then they purchased a color wheel, just like this one.

PS....I hated that stupid tree.

View attachment 59474
Click to expand...


Yes...when I was a kid my mother had one for a season or two. I think it was during the aluminum tree craze?
 
xmas2018.jpg

I have this display on my front porch... the rabbit pjs/dummy from the movie "Christmas Story" and a tinsel tree along with the very same color wheel in your picture sitting on the floor which you can't see. So far the christmas thieves have left everything alone... maybe it helps that I attached a motion alarm on the setup.
 
We had bubble lights also. I remember the tinsel being very heavy back in the 50's. It hung much better than the new lightweight stuff. Do you remember the toothpick trees? It started out with styrofoam balls. You filled each ball with toothpicks until your fingers were sore then you took whatever number you wanted as the base and added row after row until you had a pyramid and one ball for the top. I sprayed mine white,added fake snow,ornaments and small lights.
The photo shows the tree in the background from the early 60's with my Mom and Dad,Grandma and Grandpa. We kept it for a few years after that.toothpick tree.jpg
 
My Dad loved decorating for Christmas. We had so many kinds of trees over the years. We had the one with the wheel light and always had bubble lights. We had an aluminum tree too. One Christmas I remember telling my Mom not to stand still or my Dad would decorate her. When I came home my Mother had Christmas balls in her ears. Her ears were pierced and my Dad put in the ornaments. They laughed like heck at the look I had on my face when I saw them in her ear. Now that they are gone the remaining family all decorate like crazy , to keep my Dad's tradition in our homes.
 
Thought I would bring in the creepy factor. Back in the 60s my brother and sister in law had something similar to this. In their living room.

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