My mom bought a this fake tree after figuring out I was allergic to Christmas trees. (They’re filled with mold.) My dad objected strenuously to us switching to a fake tree. But I finally stopped spending the whole of December sick, turning into lingering bronchitis through the spring.
One year, we visited Jewish friends for a couple days around Christmas, and my eternal winter cold lifted. My mom put that puzzle piece together with the fact that I always perked up on Christmas Eve at Grandma’s house — which had a fake tree.
For years, I’d get sick a few days after we got the Christmas tree — the warmth indoors lets the mold spores open up, and they ALL have them.
Since I was sick, I’d stay home from school, curled up beside the Christmas tree. We had no idea it was the source of my illness.
I have very fond feelings for the fake tree we got when I was a kid. It was my childhood Christmas tree for the second half of my childhood, and it was the end of a very long season of winter/spring illness for me.
Fake Christmas trees are wonderful things.