Rockefeller Christmas tree lights up in New York City
This year’s tree is a 75-foot Norway spruce from a suburb of Albany, New York, complete with a 900-pound Swarovski star.
From the sweet smell of freshly baked cookies to family gatherings, Sean Hundertmark’s mother always made Christmas fun.
When she died 20 years ago, Hundertmark dedicated his annual celebration to her, turning on Christmas lights on her birthday in early December and soaking in the familiar traditions she left behind.
“I’m trying to do everything she did for us when we were kids,” said Hundertmark, 49.
Comes with one decoration. His family only had one tree, but they now have 15 to 12 indoors and three on the balcony.
The man, who immigrated from Pennsylvania and cut down trees at his home during Christmas, now works as a chef at a restaurant at Walt Disney World. The first year he moved to Florida, he bought a freshly cut tree, but the air conditioner killed it. Now he’s content with a row of glittering artificial trees instead.
The family room of his 2,100-square-foot home includes a 12-foot-tall festive tree decorated with a hodgepodge of ornaments. The dining room hut is flanked by evergreens in a red and gold theme with ornaments inherited from her grandmother.
There’s a Disney tree in the formal living room and a black-painted Star Wars tree in the office. He has planted trees in the kitchen and in each of the two bathrooms.
“I love Christmas,” Hundertmark said. “I always said to myself, ‘I want to have a tree in every room.'”
From Kim Kardashian to ‘Crazy Tree Lady’
One tree is not enough for a growing number of households. They continue to acquire more “by chance”.
“I happened to get an 8′, 7′, 6′, 5’6, 2 5′ and a few smaller ones,” one person commented on Facebook. “We still think there is room for more.”
Another said, “We have 13 trees this year.” “My husband asked me if I was going to buy another tree, and I said no because I bought three. Technically speaking, I wasn’t lying!”
A third commented: “Lost count.”
To some, this multi-tree phenomenon is like Rockefeller Center.
Georgia woman Shasta Rogers calls herself the “Crazy Tree Lady” because her home is filled with dozens of trees. In December, a German family set a new record with 621 decorated trees in one house.
Diane Tice, known as the “Christmas Tree Lady of Palm Beach Gardens,” creates her own “winter wonderland” by planting trees on her kitchen counter, pool table, bathtub and even above her washing machine in her Florida home. This year, she “downsized” from 63 to 60.
Thirteen years ago, after Barbara Hardesty was diagnosed with cancer, she decorated her Columbus, Ohio, home with 100 Christmas trees to brighten her outlook. Now cancer-free, she gives public tours of her forest of 777 trees (including the “toilet tree” in the toilet).
“But why do I need so many Christmas trees at home?” one person commented on Kim Kardashian’s Instagram-perfect “winter wonderland” lined with dozens, maybe hundreds, of snow-covered Tannenbaums.
The number of Taki households is increasing.
Most people don’t have the money, space or time to build such a large Christmas tree, but households with multiple trees are becoming more common, and a YouGov survey found that 20% of households decorating a Christmas tree this year plan to have more than one.
The National Tree Company reports that the average household has 1.5 to 1.7 Christmas trees.
Rick Dungey, executive director of the National Christmas Tree Association, said it often starts with a second, smaller tree for children. Dungey said data shows that 15% to 20% of households that purchase live trees purchase more than one tree.
Mac Herman, founder and CEO of Balsam Hill, which sells hundreds of thousands of artificial trees each year, said nearly half of his customers have more than one Christmas tree.
In some cases, you may want to combine a formal, eye-catching tree with a more personal, eclectic tree to house family memorabilia, such as construction paper, dried macaroni, or children’s ornaments made from glitter or beads.
Others lengthen the holiday season by putting up artificial trees in November and farm-cut trees in December.
Larger homes are influencing the trend, and Instagram and TikTok are no exception, with a splash of holiday sparkle, whether it’s a themed tree in each room or clusters of trees for dramatic effect.
According to Herman, the turbulent global situation is also playing a role. Sales of his company’s Christmas trees soared in Australia after two gunmen attacked a Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people in the country’s worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years.
“Whether you’re Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Catholic, or anything else, a warm glow of light and nostalgic decorations make people feel safe and happy,” Herman said. “We’ve seen this over and over again. When times are difficult, when times are tough, when people are stressed or sad, people invest more in Christmas decorations because it brings them joy.”
Christmas trees are the center of holiday cheer
Christy Peterson says she always wants to be in a room with a Christmas tree. So she got five for her home in Orlando, Florida.
Peterson, who moved south from Indiana, left behind the cold and snow, but not the spirit of Midwestern winter. She puts up a tree every day after her birthday in early November as a present to herself.
Her 15-year-old son has a Chicago Bulls-themed tree in his bedroom. The sixth “cowboy chic” themed tree is located at a vacation home in Fort Myers, where her husband lives during the week.
“I always thought one tree couldn’t support all the joy of Christmas,” said Peterson, 44, who works for an airline. “Putting a lot of Christmas trees will create a more Christmas-like atmosphere.”
A study conducted at the University of Denmark in 2015 showed 20 people images with Christmas or non-Christmas themes while being monitored with a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine that showed increases and decreases in brain activity.
When looking at images of Christmas, “the area lit up, well, like a Christmas tree,” Olly Robertson, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at Keele University, writes in The Conversation.
“Because of our past, our brains generate feelings of celebrating Christmas whenever we encounter items or ideas that we can relate to,” Robertson says.
The tree is the center of Christmas cheer. “Temporary temporal landmarks that help people make meaning by distracting themselves, heightening their presence, and creating a psychological break from everyday demands,” says Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center.
According to psychologists, Christmas trees connect us with beloved family traditions and meaningful religious or spiritual rituals, remind us of childlike feelings of joy and wonder, and increase our sense of well-being. The glow of warm light calms the nervous system and releases feel-good brain chemicals, especially during the dark winter months. According to Rutledge, ornaments express not only who we are, but also who we belong to, allowing us to savor and relive special moments.
“Decorating and gathering around[a Christmas tree]builds up memories year after year, and the tree becomes a scaffold for memories of personal and family history, sparking reflection and sharing of memories,” she said. “Every year new experiences are added to old ones.”
Having multiple trees is like having a visual playlist, “each with a different emotional or social function,” she said.
Additionally, greenery and organic shapes “reduce stress and signal safety and continuity when the environment feels cold and uncertain,” Rutledge said. “Humans prefer natural elements, especially greenery, based on our evolutionary response to nature.”
“There’s a tree in every room.”
For decades, Donna Cutil-Ross, who runs a Cape Cod garden center with her brother, has brought nature indoors every winter.
“We’re selling Christmas,” said Ross, 51. “I grew up selling trees, taking down trees and loving trees.”
Ross always had a Christmas tree at his house. She started giving birth to two when her daughter was born 10 years ago. However, as the family collected more ornaments, there were no longer enough trees to display them.
So Ross now has eight trees, including a 9-foot Fraser fir tree in the living room, a sports and leisure-themed tree on the three-season porch, a coastal-themed tree in the spare room, and a “Grammy” tree with ornaments from grandmothers on both sides of the family.
She noticed that customers at Scenic Roots Garden Center in Sandwich, Mass., often picked up two or three.
“I love Christmas and I love decorated trees,” Ross said. “They are your memories, your family, your joy. To me, they just fill the home with love.”
