Christmas season comes early to Transylvania County, N.C.

Christmas season is already in full swing in western North Carolina’s tinsel town of Brevard, the county seat in Transylvania County. 

The holidays officially began there on Nov. 11, with the opening of the annual “pop up” Aluminum Tree & Ornament Museum (ATOM). (Actually, it’s a special exhibit that takes over the rustic Transylvania Heritage Museum in downtown Brevard.)

 

Tourism officials invite guests to come and experience a “blast from the past that will take you back to the late 1950s when aluminum Christmas trees were all the rage. This is a fun, quirky holiday outing that will make you smile and brighten your day.” 

ATOM is believed to be the world’s only museum display that features vintage aluminum Christmas trees. Dozens of “tin Tannenbaums” are adorned with retro ornaments. Color wheels turn to provide the light show. Special events include the Atomic Sisterhood performing original Christmas carols with “reimagined lyrics.”

 

The special exhibit runs through Jan. 20, 2024. Hours get a little bit tricky, however. The museum is open Thursday-Saturday from 12 noon-4 p.m. (unless it’s closed). It might be best to call ahead to (828) 884-2347 or send a text message. 

Admission is free, although donations are much appreciated. (The nonprofit Transylvania Heritage Museum is run by volunteers, and ATOM is the museum’s primary fundraising event.) 

One of the ATOM’s foremost cheerleaders is Ki Nassauer, who has been dubbed the “Martha Stewart of vintage” by the national news media. She has featured the aluminum trees of Brevard in her Lived-In Style magazine and on her website.

 

“ATOM is an apt name for this museum since the trees were produced during the ‘atomic age’ in the 1950s, when aluminum was abundant,” she said. “Aluminum companies had ramped up production during World War II, and by the war’s end they had a whole lot of it.” 

“It was time to get creative. Millions of aluminum Christmas trees were produced from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.” 

“And Brevard is the perfect location for the museum, since it’s the gateway to the Pisgah National Forest, a great protector of trees,” Nassauer commented.

 

What’s funny is that the aluminum trees collection all happened quite by accident. It’s an uncanny occurrence, for sure. In 1991, Stephen Jackson, owner of a custom home design and construction business in Brevard, was gifted by a friend – as a joke – a “tattered aluminum Christmas tree that she pilfered from a garbage heap.” 

Remembering the silver tree in his childhood home, Jackson threw a party and invited his guests to bring the “most aesthetically challenged” ornaments they could find to adorn his rescue-tree. 

Over the years, “the project” snowballed as Jackson’s friends nabbed even more trees from yard sales, flea markets and dusty attics. 

When his home became overwhelmed with aluminum trees, he turned to the museum and hollered for help. He sold the museum his entire inventory for a song. 

Our State magazine sent its ace correspondent Drew Perry to Brevard to file a story a few years ago. “Aluminum Christmas trees aren’t for everyone, but the spectacle of dozens of them decked out in their shiny finery is irresistible – and spectacular,” he wrote. 

“I’m here outside of museum hours, so I’ve got the place to myself, which is good, because I need a lot of space to wander around slack-jawed,” Perry said. “You need to get yourself to Brevard,” he counseled his readers. 

Steve Wong of GoUpstate.com in Spartanburg, S.C., said ATOM is “full of glitter and glamour” and all that’s “tacky and wacky.”

U.S. celebrates 100-year anniversary of National Christmas Tree

Calvin Coolidge was the first U.S. president to press the magic button to illuminate an outdoor Christmas tree on the White House lawn in 1923. All 2,500 or so green, white and red bulbs lit up just as planned and right on cue.

 

This year’s National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 30 celebrates the 100-year anniversary of this annual event…while featuring a century of technological advancements. 

Annie Brackemyre of the National Park Foundation said this year’s tree will contain more than “13,000 feet (or 2.5 miles) of lights strung end-to-end, 63,750 individual LED bulbs, and 400+ ornaments.”

 

The tradition of having a National Christmas Tree began as a bright idea that was first expressed by Lucretia Walker Hardy, a civic leader in Washington. In a letter addressed to presidential secretary Campbell Bascom Slemp in 1923, she said: 

“It seems that the use of the White House grounds for this Christmas tree will give the sentiment and the (associated) exercises a national character.”

Slemp 

Slemp, a former U.S. Congressman from Big Stone Gap, Va., agreed to help. He ran Hardy’s idea by First Lady Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge, who gave the suggestion her blessing…and promised to “speak to Cal.”

 

There was another angle to the story, however, according to Mark Bushnell, a Vermont journalist and historian. 

It involved Frederick Feiker, press agent for U.S. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover. (Feiker “moonlighted” as vice president of the Society for Electrical Development, an industry trade association.)

 Feiker

Feiker leaned on U.S. Sen. Frank L. Greene of Vermont, a chum of Coolidge, to arrange a meeting with the president. (Greene and Coolidge were both Vermont natives.)

Sen. Greene 

Feiker convincingly asserted: “The tree would serve as the nation’s Christmas tree and honor the importance of Christmas as a religious holiday.” 

But there was another motive, and Feiker eventually confessed: “The Society for Electrical Development was interested in having as many people use electric lights at Christmas time as possible.”

 

“In order to get this started, we had to get the president of the United States to light the tree,” Feiker said. 

It was a slick publicity stunt. Electric lights on Christmas trees were viewed by many as a luxury in 1923. Electric lights were still far from the norm, Bushnell said. “Many rural parts of America, including the president’s hometown of Plymouth, Vt., didn’t even have electricity yet.” 

Hardy informed Slemp that she had “made arrangements” to provide a “large and thoroughly representative” tree for the occasion. She reached out to Paul Dwight Moody, president of Middlebury (Vt.) College, who selected a 48-foot balsam fir from the Middlebury forest preserve in the Green Mountains.

 

A group of alumni paid to have the tree shipped by train to Washington. Branches on the bottom 10 feet of the tree were badly damaged during transit, so organizers had to arrange for some cosmetic surgery. They had branches cut from other trees and lashed to the fir.

 

Hikers in the Green Mountains of Vermont

The Electric League of Washington spent $5,000 running underground electrical cables to the tree. 

Coolidge lit the tree at 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve in 1923. He refused to make a speech. Those were the good old days. 

The National Park Service reported that the “worst experience” involving the National Christmas Tree occurred in 1970 when the train carrying a 78-foot spruce from South Dakota derailed in Nebraska – twice. 

“A few days after the lighting ceremony, the electrical sockets that had been coated with fireproofing liquid spray caused the bulbs on the lower half of the tree to explode,” the NPS noted.

Are you ready for some Christmas music?

A number of commercial radio stations have “moved up” the beginning of “Christmas music season” this year, to match Sirius XM, which starts streaming its Christmas stations on Nov. 1. 

Shall we go ahead and ease into it with some secular classics?

 

Let’s begin: Who sang “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” best? The tune premiered in 1934 when Eddie Cantor sang it on his national radio show.

 

Co-written by music industry titans J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, the song has been sung by hundreds of artists through the years.

 (Coots above and Gillespie below)

Realizing that everyone is an expert on music, and everyone has an opinion, we’ll look to Justin Curto, an entertainment journalist at New York Magazine, for some objective guidance. 

He has seven top contenders in the “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” sweepstakes. Here we go. 

“If you want a classic take on ‘Santa Claus,’ skip Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, whose suave, steady deliveries don’t add much to a song that should be overflowing with enthusiasm,” Curto opined. “Leave it to Burl Ives instead. The singer best known for ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas’ puts an equally jolly spin on ‘Santa Claus.’”

 

Curto also likes The Crystals’ version of “Santa Claus” – the first group to transform the song into pop music “full of blustery brass and clanging piano. That would’ve meant nothing without the gleeful vocal power of the Crystals. Their performance became the blueprint for ‘Santa Claus’ covers.”

 

The Pointer Sisters’ rendition of the holiday hit “gets messy, but that’s part of the fun when singing Christmas songs…at the office party,” Curto said. “Anita, June and Ruth make it shine with the sort of playful bond only family can bring, belting and whooping with equal power. It sounds like they’ve never had more fun singing together.” 

Dolly Parton gives “Santa Claus” a bit of a country music twist with a fiddle solo from Jimmy Mattingly. The recording is a “true musical encapsulation of holiday cheer,” Curto said.

 

“Is Mariah Carey so good at singing ‘Santa Claus’ because it’s one of the main inspirations for ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’…or is ‘All I Want for Christmas’ so good because Carey conquered ‘Santa Claus?’” 

Curto said: “The central truth is that Carey’s performances of both are bursting at the seams with holiday spirit.”

 

In the final analysis, Curto said: “Anyone can sing ‘Santa Claus,’ but it takes a kid to truly sell the excitement. That’s how the Jackson 5 made one of the song’s definitive performances.” 

“Michael musters all the oomph he can for the chorus, somehow making each one sound bigger than the last. Over a signature Motown groove, these kids could not sound more enthused about all the toys Santa would bring. They sounded like they believed, and for a few minutes, they could make you believe, too.”

 

But the winner is: “Bruce Springsteen. His band’s invigorated 1972 live rendition of ‘Santa Claus’ isn’t just the best version of the song – it’s one of the best examples of why Springsteen and his band are such stellar performers,” Curto wrote. 

“The performance is boisterous, jubilant and just full of life. They take a minute to ease into things before absolutely flooring it after the first verse,” Curto said. “That’s when the tightness of the band is really apparent, from Springsteen’s singing to Clarence Clemons’s all-time sax solo to Roy Battan and Max Weinberg’s integral piano and drum pounding.”

 

“That’d be an alchemical combination for a live take, but what pushes this over the top is how much fun the band is having. Clemons’s Santa Claus laughter is infectious, so much so that, by the end, Springsteen can barely get the words out himself. More than 50 years later, it’s still a heartwarming shot of Christmas spirit like no other.”

Win tickets to National Christmas Tree Lighting event

Enter the online lottery for a chance to win free tickets to the 100-year anniversary celebration at the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in Washington, D.C, on Thursday, Nov. 30. 

Organized by the National Park Service/National Park Foundation, the lottery opens at 10 a.m. on Nov. 1 and closes at 3 p.m. on Nov. 8. 

Visit www.recreation.gov and click on “Ticket Lottery.” People can also call 877-444-6777 to enter. Lottery applicants will be notified on Nov. 15.

 

The big event takes place at The Ellipse in President’s Park South, a 52-acre park located directly south of the White House. Approximately 10,000 people typically attend, including members of the First Family. Celebrity entertainers are scheduled to perform.

 

The National Christmas Tree site opens to the public on Dec. 2 and continues through Jan. 1, 2024. One interesting component is the “America Celebrates” display of 58 smaller Christmas trees, representing each U.S. state and territory. 

These trees are 7-foot Fraser firs grown in North Carolina that are decorated with ornaments contributed by students that symbolize the uniqueness of their home state or territory.

 

For the past four seasons, Mountain Top Fraser Fir, a wholesale Christmas tree farm near Newland in North Carolina’s Avery County, has donated all of Fraser firs for this project, reported Annie Brackemyre, a National Parks Foundation staff writer. 

Mountain Top Fraser Fir is owned by brothers Larry and Lynn Smith, along with business partner Dale Benfield. Their farm has been growing and selling Christmas trees since 1977. 

Brackemyre reported that during the first week of November, Larry Smith walks the farm hand picks each tree that will go to Washington for the display. “Each tree needs to be the same size and able to hold the 20+ ornaments decorated by the school children,” she wrote. 

Larry Smith said he “got the bug” in 2018, when one of his trees was selected to be displayed inside the White House in the famous Blue Room.

 

“It’s pretty neat any time you can do anything for the White House,” he said. “It’s an honor to think something that a small-town farmer grows gets to go to the White House.”

 

Now, Larry Smith regularly attends the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, Brackemyre wrote. “I get so excited,” he said. “It’s a time to enjoy each other and be together. 

That’s why I love being part of this. You just see the joy on everyone’s faces. It’s just so magical and such a special experience.” 

The White House has selected Fraser firs from North Carolina to grace the Blue Room 15 times – more than any other state. 

Most recently, a Fraser fir from Peak Farms, owned by Rusty Estes and his son Beau Estes of Jefferson in Ashe County, was chosen in 2021, making it a “three-peat” for this family tree farm. Other Peak Farms trees were displayed in the Blue Room in 2008 and 2012. 

This year’s 2023 Blue Room tree is yet another North Carolina Fraser fir. It is coming from Cline Church Nursery near Fleetwood in Ashe County, owned since 1977 by Cline and Ellen Church. The 19-foot tree will be cut on Nov. 15 and delivered by truck to the White House.

 

Furthermore, it’s already been decided that the official White House Blue Room Christmas tree in 2024 will be supplied by Cartner Christmas Tree Farm, which was established in 1959 and is located north of Newland in Avery County.

 

Founders Sam and Margaret Cartner

Let’s all celebrate a Tar Heel State Christmas tree dynasty. Fraser firs forever.

Waco and ALICO rhyme: Visitors take notice

If Waco, Texas, expects to be in the running to be the prime location for the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse, it needs to start beating its chest as a genuine tourism destination.

 

The Magnolia brand, created by contemporary fixer uppers, community saviors and television celebrities Chip and Joanna Gaines, is a great hook…but there has to be more curb appeal. Introducing the ALICO Building. 

The first skyscraper built west of the Mississippi River, the ALICO Building is an impressive, 22-story structure in downtown Waco. The 282-foot tall building was completed in 1911 and became the headquarters of the Amicable Life Insurance Company (ALICO) of Texas.

 

In 1965, Amicable Life Insurance Company and American Life Insurance Company merged to become the American-Amicable Life Insurance Company. In 1966, the company added a large neon sign at the top of the building displaying the original acronym ALICO (rather than the stutteringly AALICO). 

Bill Teeter, a reporter at the Waco Tribune-Herald, recently went up on the roof of the ALICO Building with Rick Rainer, who was dispatched to perform maintenance on the electrical transformers that power the giant letter “A.” 

Residents had reported that the sign was illuminating as LICO. (Thankfully, any given outage combination does not inadvertently spell an off-color word.)

 

Megan Gilmore, a local Waco advertising executive, shouts from the rooftop.

Rainer, a technician with Jackson Sign & Lighting Inc., says he “climbs over the building’s edge about once a month to keep the sign fully lit.” Servicing the five-letter sign brings in about $6,000 in revenue per year to the sign company.

“With its 20-foot-tall letters, the sign has been a sentinel, glowing above the city’s night skyline – a signature for Waco,” Teeter reported. 

Phil Jackson, owner of sign company, told Teeter that the ALICO sign contains dozens of red neon tubes that measure 90 to 95 inches and are mounted on the red-painted letters. He said each letter contains multiple transformers. The challenge is that technicians cannot reach the top of the roof with a lift or bucket truck.

 

The only access to the sign is from the rooftop. Teeter said: “Rainer must tie himself to the structure with a safety harness and cling to trusses. 

“You wrap your leg around something, hold on with one hand and work with the other,” Rainer said. (The proud…the few: those who dare to dangle in thin air.) 

In 2010, American-Amicable Life Insurance Company was acquired by Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services, Inc., based in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The company refers to itself as iA Financial Group. The community of Waco thanked the new owners for not changing or removing the sign. 

Students on campus at Baylor University in Waco, a mere mile away from the ALICO Building, have a special affinity for the ALICO nightlight, a beacon that is always welcoming.

 

In 2005, Palmer Hestley, a reporter for The Baylor Lariat, wrote: “The ALICO Building has been watching over Waco, guiding Baylor students home for almost a century.” It stands “elegant and strong” with the “bright red A-L-I-C-O shining brilliantly. Waco…can always look up and see where its heart and soul lies.” 

Visitors can also enjoy Waco’s Cameron Park, one of the largest municipal parks in Texas, encompassing 416 acres along the banks and bluffs of the Brazos and Bosque rivers.

 

Visit Lovers’ Leap, with a 370-foot drop from the white limestone cliffs, which is haunted by the legend of Waco tribe Princess Wah-Wah-Tee plunging with her lover, a brave from the nearby Tawakoni tribe, ending their lives but beginning the eternal union of their spirits. 

Can Waco’s soda pop mystery be solved prior to 2024 eclipse?

“Will the real Dr. Pepper please stand up?” This would present an interesting challenge to the four panelists on “To Tell the Truth,” a long-running television game show that debuted in 1956.

 

Bud Collyer hosted “To Tell the Truth.”

The objective is to separate fact from fiction. Who invented and named the original Dr. Pepper soft drink product? When and where? 

Waco, Texas, claims to be the birthplace of Dr. Pepper in 1885. It was America’s first soft drink, introduced at “Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store,” owned by Wade B. Morrison, who had moved to Waco from Virginia. 

The beverage was reportedly concocted by Charles Courtice Alderton, a young pharmacist employed by Morrison. The drink was initially called “Waco,” a blend of 23 flavorings. Everybody who tasted it loved it. 

However, Morrison mysteriously “renamed” the product as “Dr. Pepper” before expanding production and distribution. Why? Was there a living, breathing Dr. Pepper lurking? 

Unfortunately, direct answers to those questions went to the grave with Morrison; he died in 1924 at age 71. 

One simple theory is: Morrison was following a trend of the times to give products names with “Doctor” in the title in order to make them sound more healthful. Author Anne Cooper Funderburg said it was popular for “nostrums” to carry a physician’s name – real or imagined – to give their products a perceived legitimacy. 

Dr. Pepper was promoted as a “brain tonic” as well as a refreshing, sugary pepper-upper drink that delivered “vim, vigor and vitality.” 

Print advertisements in 1913 proclaimed Dr. Pepper to be “Liquid Sunlight.” The copywriter said all life revolves around the sun, and the sun’s energy is soaked up by “certain fruits, nuts and sugar cane. We combine these substances with distilled water. The name we give our combination is Dr. Pepper.” 

“Drink a beverage that promotes cell building, not one that simply deadens the sensory nerves. Drink Dr. Pepper. Solar energy-liquid sunshine.”

 

The product became Dr Pepper (sans the “period”) in 1950.

 

With the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, Waco will be directly under the shadow for 4 minutes, 13 seconds – one of the best places in America to view this extraordinary event. 

The folks at Dr Pepper need to capitalize on the enormous marketing opportunities that have fallen into their lap…and hitch the Dr Pepper wagon to the stars above – establishing Dr Pepper as the “official drink of the universe.”

 

Still, there is the need to address the issue of Dr. Charles Taylor Pepper of Rural Retreat, Va. 

Lots of folks believe adamantly that he’s the guy behind the original Dr. Pepper drink. 

Dr. Charles Pepper was a “real doctor.” He earned a medical degree at the University of Virginia in 1855. He served as a surgeon with the Confederacy during the Civil War and established a medical office in Rural Retreat after the war.

 

Fact or fiction?

Dr. Charles Pepper opened a drug store as an extension of his practice. He “mixed up mountain herbs, roots and seltzer into a fizzy brew” that he served to his customers, promising “health giving properties.”

 

Some sources believe that Wade Morrison once worked for Dr. Charles Pepper and hijacked the drink formula. 

Cindy Akers of Pulaski, Va., says Morrison lived in Christiansburg, Va., and was a neighbor of Dr. William Alexander Reed Pepper (Dr. Charles Pepper’s older brother). Morrison was friendly toward Dr. William Pepper’s daughter, Mary Ann “Minnie” Pepper. 

Akers speculates that Dr. Pepper was initially named in honor of Dr. William Pepper, who was a father-like mentor to Wade Morrison. 

That works for me.