We have a video of my wife’s mum and dad lighting the candles on the Christmas tree in 1962. It was apparently very common well into the '60s.
They didn’t light them, but I remember a Christmas tree of my grandparents’ that had candles in the early 70s. By that time we had the large incandescent lights for ours. Which were damn hot themselves, so tree fires were still a thing.
I always knew the rule about dry trees and fire, but you don’t understand it until you see last year’s tossed out tree in a field that’s being burned suddenly go WHHOOOFFF! That could have been inside a house… :O
Quite! We check the water in our tree base daily, just for the peace of mind of knowing we don’t have a 7-foot firelighter in the house.
I still light candles on my tree.
My favorite is the wonderful tradition of Snap-Dragon , a game to delight the children on Christmas Eve or Twelfth Night.
I remember my dad telling me about my grandpa jumping up out of his chair, grabbing the now burning Christmas tree, and yeeting it out the front door.
It’s one thing for one person to get the bright idea of exposing a highly combustible, dried out tree to multiple open flames. But the fact that much of western society was like, “You know what? We should totally do that. What could possibly go wrong?” I just… I don’t even have words.
People are dumb - and worst of all, even the smartest of us are often dumb XD
As teens we used to go wander around the woods all the time for fun. Once in the early winter, I think it must have been November because the snow wasn’t deep yet and there was still a bit of water around, we decided to play with fire.
We were dumb bored kids so we had the bright idea to set a pine tree on fire. We thought that since it was cold, the tree wouldn’t be affected much. This was a huge 50 foot tree.
We set fire to the lower branches and it started a quick fire and we watched it. Within 60 seconds, it turned into a towering inferno like an inverted jet pointing to the ground and 100 foot flames shooting into the sky. We ran and thought for sure we had started a forest fire (and it probably would have if it were summertime) … but it only stayed with that one tree.
We were always careful around trees and fire after that.
I can just imagine someone coming across that tree later and assuming it had been struck by lightning. I’m glad it didn’t spread! Thanks for sharing the story.
Know people who still light tree candles, even though one of them had their childhood home burn to the ground… because of tree candles. Now, they stand guard with an extinguisher at the ready. Mention LED candles and you get the dirtiest looks ever.
Traditions are hard to change, yo.
