Wire, house fires, feathers, toilet-cleaning brushes…with real (and fake) Christmas trees!

Originally written by Leo S. 🙏🏼 in 2021. Published in 2025

Believe it or not, exist some Christmas trees are vibrating, and a swishing noise emanates from their devices which, in an imaginarive way, could sound like a sort of dry sleet hitting the ground.
In others, a little bit macabre angel figure perches at its very top as tiny Styrofoam balls shoot out from under her skirt, falling through the aluminum branches below before getting collected again from a vacuum-like tray at the bottom.The white stuff then circulates back up through a tube, in a continuous flow of disturbing fake snow, guaranting a white Christmas in every home, regardless of weather.
Are you in Brazil? Well, you have your snow, too.
Looking around, exist trees green, of course, but also gold, pink, or even black, as well as the so-called “Spartus Electralife”, an evolution of the Christmas Tree Vibrator invented in 1950, that brings life to aluminum Christmas t trees simply attach it to the base of your artificial tree that will shimmer with life!
According to the patent, the device produces an intriguing rustling sound similar to the sound of sleet falling upon packed snow. The design didn’t quite catch on, and it’s not hard to see why.
In short, fake snow storms together with faux pine needles.
All stuff that makes me wonder about what level of obsession led to these creations.
The answer is a complicated, intriguing, evolving story that includes lots of wire, feathers…and even toilet-cleaning brushes!

Well, back to the origins, already centuries ago, Pagans decorated their winter solstice with evergreens, and in Europe, tree-decorating traditions can be traced to the 15th or 16th century.
However, the early concept closest to an actual Christmas tree was called “the paradise tree”, and it was adorned with apples for Adam and Eve’s Day on December 24, a medieval Christian holiday.
By the 1700s in parts of Europe, above all in Germany, families decorated evergreen boughs or trees with treats for Christmas. German immigrants are early adopters in the United States. The Illustrated London News’ 1848 Christmas Supplement featured a drawing of Queen Victoria (not by chance, her husband was German), Prince Albert, and their children around a decorated tree and, after that, the Christmas tree idea spread far and wide.

Unfortunately, as German forests dwindled from the 1750s to the 1850s, people searched for similar alternative evergreen replacements, with some took to crafting their own Christmas trees from wire and feathers from geese or other birds.
Feather trees still exist today, but historical creations looked nothing like modern elegant versions.
Interestingly, due to the unique way the feathers were twisted into place to form each branch’s needles, it washard to tell they’re feathers at all and, although the branches appeared sparse, the goose feather trees became a tradition.
Feather trees are much older than you think and, as Germany is a world Christmas powerhouse, the artificial trees were also a way to preserve tradition so it’s not as harmful to the environment.
The first real artificial-tree patent went to Mary Crook in 1911 for a twisted wire tree with loops for candles or other ornaments on the branch tips.
Although her patent sketch didn’t really look like a tree at all, her goal was something durable, inexpensive and, above all, fireproof. In fact, in the late-19th to early-20th centuries, real lit candles often illuminated the trees, and also early electric Christmas lights were hot.
And, as you can imagine, neither option was truly safe for dried-out, dead trees displayed indoors (and outdoors, of course).
It was 1917, when Herman Vierlinger patented the actual ancestor of our modern artificial tree, calling it literally strong-limbed and foldable, as well as handsome, glittery and brushy. Again, his tree had twisted wire branches, but with thin metal threads poking out as pine needles.
It sounds good, even if his tree was probably best handled with gloves. In any case, the brush-style Christmas tree, decades ahead of its time, was born.

And then the long-awaited connection with toilet brushes.
Many sources credit Addis, a centuries-old UK company one of the first to manufacture toothbrushes as early as the 1860s, the creation of trees inspired by tools used to clean household items..like toilets.
In the 1940s, the company made its first nylon-bristled toothbrush, and by the mid-1950s, it also manufactured a variety of plastic and nylon-bristled household brushes.
We also do know that Addis produced the trees applying the same technology used to produce toilet brushes, in green, of course, to replicate the natural pine needle colour.
And, as you can imagine, as post-war plastics took off, the toilet brush tree trend became a hit.
These were little artificial trees, essentially a single cone-shaped brush with a base.
Kitschy colors came out in aqua, pink, or white, and several companies made a variety of quirky clear-plastic trees starting in the late 1940s, including versions that glow in the dark.

While the average 21st Century artificial tree leans towards the realistic, some companies offer still today modern versions of the most unique designs, and you can find handmade feather trees crafted with goose feathers, kits to make your own feather tree as well, or even a modernized, all-in-one version of a tree that snows, which comes pre-strung with lights, and has the option to play a variety of Christmas songs.
Of course, because part of the original intention of artificial Christmas trees was to help deforestation problems, there are more sustainable versions that don’t spew out styrofoam balls, and the most modern solutions uses less plastic than standard artificial trees, helping sustain an ancient pagan tradition in a way that sustains nature as well, despite the unfortunate lack of a disturbing angel with a snowing skirt, or even a green toilet brushes in your living room.