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.”