18 Christmas trees you probably won't see at Grandma's
'Tis the holiday season. While not everyone busts out the real or fake tree, it is always a symbol of the beginning of winter and the end of the calendar year. With the latest generation of kids striving to avoid conforming to the traditional ways of Christmas, new ways of showing off that festive cheer have taken the holiday decorations scene by storm. Click through to see 18 Christmas trees that you probably won't find at Grandma's house this holiday season.
Now this is just lazy.
While it may look brown and gold on the outside, this designer tree by Buro North is actually pretty green on the inside. This tree is 80-percent more environmental friendly than pine trees and is constructed by a low-energy production technique. I'm sure it was designed the the odd-look to cater to the outrageous green-freak hippies out there, obviously.
It doesn't surprise me one bit that this is an actual product. Just about every kind of product is available in USB form and there are actually a couple different varieties of USB Christmas trees. This one specifically is available from Thinkgeek for $12.99. It uses fiber optics for the lights. While the USB compatibility is nice for a desk or office, it can go "wireless" with the assistance of a few AAA batteries.
The Dr. Seuss book How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a cult classic of sorts, if cult classics can exist for holiday children's books. You may not be a grinch towards Christmas, but that doesn't mean this icon for Christmas thievery can't be welcomed into a household that appreciates the Seuss. It is available for $20 from Urban Outfitters. This only begs the question, which animated character has a better whimsical tree — the Grinch or Charlie Brown…
Charlie Brown has the lone task of finding a Christmas tree for the school play in A Charlie Brown Christmas. This is the tree that he returns with much to the ridicule of his peers, but those of us watching can easily feel compassion for Charlie and more so his tree that is more than just a red bulb and few limbs. I want to say that I especially like this real version of Chuck's tree because it helps recognize what the true meaning of Christmas, but in reality I just like it because of the minimalist and small design.
Just because they are futuristic inhabitants of the the Halo universe doesn't mean that they don't deserve a little Christmas tree love. Resting atop this traditional Christmas tree is Master Chief's helmet. This is the helmet worn by Halo's hero, and also serves as the holster for the legendary edition of Halo 3. Previously, this helmet had no use rather than a geeky trophy on your video game shelf. Now it can rest atop a traditional Christmas tree protecting the holiday from the Covenant.
Approximately 400 Mountain Dew cans, three months of consumption and four days of construction were put into the Mountain Dew Christmas Tree. It was constructed rather well using a lot of wire and a central PVC pipe. Lights are strung all around the tree and a single two-liter Mountain Dew bottle sits atop being the star on this sugary tree. But what if you are above the age of 20....
The one advantage of the green bottles used by a select number of beer manufacturers is the ability to built giant green towers. Rather than simply stacking the bottles until someone drunkenly dives into the tower lat the end of the night, a little more thought was put into this beer bottle Christmas tree. More than 100 Grolsch bottles were used in the creation of this tree. And surprisingly it stood long enough for a picture to be taken — one would expect the creators to be a little on the wild side.
Palm trees have been used as Christmas trees by those living in warmer clients for quite some time. I'm not too fond of people who do put up palm trees because they're doing so to spite those of us living in colder climates. Also, a palm tree inside? Maybe I should be the one laughing at you!
The geek-style of tree became popular around the IT crowd, which doesn't help out the stereotypes for said crowds at all. The company IT guy usually has all kinds of spare computer equipment laying around which happens to be perfect for a Christmas tree. It's not just computer parts either, all kinds of gadgets can hang from the limb of a Christmas tree with ease.
These may be the most radical Christmas trees featured and they are also the simplest. Treetopia is offering "funky colored" Christmas trees in lemon-lime, pink, purple, red, silver and black. The only reason to get a tree like this: it matches the paint scheme in your house — any other reason and people may begin questioning your sanity.
The main reason you won't find this Christmas tree at Grandma's is because it probably wouldn't fit. This tree deserves some props because it has a nice story this year and it underwent significant technical changes. Every year trees across the country try out for the job of Rockefeller Center tree, American Idol style, with only one getting the cut. This year it was a persistent neighbor who continually submitted a tree that he didn't even own because he just wanted to see it at the Rock. His persistence paid off and the Simon Cowell of tree selection showed up to this obsessive neighbors house and persuaded the owner to let it go. This year the tree is also wrapped in 30,000 LED light, rather than regular lights of years past. This cuts the power usage by 63-percent. After this tree has done its deed, it will be chopped up and distributed to Habitat to Humanity groups worldwide. See, isn't that nice.
I guess I'm too young to know, but apparently back in the 1950s, people were speculating that the future would have metal Christmas trees. It seems they were right, except for the fact that the human race has not depleted the stock of evergreen coniferous trees and companies like Hammacher Schlemmer only sells these kind of tree to mock those bright-eyed individuals from the 1950s.
The Festivus pole is not necessarily a Christmas tree, but a placeholder for the Christmas tree for Festivus, another December holiday. Festivus was invented by Daniel O'Keefe, a writer and editor for Reader's Digest. It was his son by the same name who gave this holiday some life while being a writer for Seinfeld. Even though it was a fictional creation for the Seinfeld episode, many people who converted to celebrating Festivus and an essential part of this holiday is the pole. The pole is used as opposition to the commercialization of the Christmas tree and was not part of the senior O'Keefe's original Festivus celebration. Much to the dismay of Frank Costanza, the fictional Festivus founder in Seinfeld, the pole has become commercialized now that FestivusPoles.com has been born.
The owner and creator of this traditional, yet uniquely adorned Christmas tree, Perler Bead, is a pretty big old school gaming junkie. How do I know? The Super Mario mural on the wall, of course. Not really, it is the Christmas tree that is completely loaded to the brim up with a variety of homemade 8-bit character ornaments from games such as Bubble Bobble, Pac-Man, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy and more. Bead will also be selling the ornaments soon on a craft site, just in time for Christmas ornaments to hit the storage bin for another year.
This is a 7-story tall Christmas tree that is constructed out of 350 artificial trees. It took upwards of 70 people five days to complete this beast. It is even decorated. It's huge, it's amazing, and it can likely hold a ton of presents. The most odd factor about this tree is that it was originally a PR stunt for a Chinese yellow pages company four years ago. Success, it seems.
Much like a lot of the trees on the list, surprisingly, the upside down Christmas tree has a bit of history. It was in the 12th century that Europeans would hang a tree from the ceiling during Christmas time. Nine centuries later that schtick has made it to the United States via this upside down pre-lite tree also available from Hammacher Schlemmer. Another tale has stores preferring these type of trees for displaying ornaments while taking up less floor space. This particular one is free-standing, rather than hanging, but it gets the point across. A heavy base keeps the tree from tipping and if you look at it long enough the tree looks like an ugly tornado.
Pac-Man's second appearance in this list is arguably the best. This very geometric Christmas tree can be found at Nuevos Ministerios in Madrid, Spain and utilizes thousands upon thousands of LEDs to create the three-sided scene. Just check out the video to get a full grasp of how big and amazing it is.
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