The Dean's Tree
(So-named by P. J. Smith)
This all-aluminum Christmas tree was designed by my father, Patrick J. Mahoney (nickname: "the Dean"), some time between 1970 and 1972. He was inspired by a tree shown at the beginning of the old movie, Bell, Book, and Candle starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. The metal parts were fabricated by a machinist in New Jersey, where we lived at the time, to dad's specs. (Actually, he didn't get all the angles right. I heard my father say this when I was a kid, but I never understood what he meant until a few years ago, when it suddenly dawned on me.) The tree is currently owned and maintained by my wife Sandy and me, John P. Mahoney. One of Pat's 6 children, I was appointed as the tree's caretaker by my sibs. They maintain that only I understand the tree, while I say that they were too smart to take it on. ;-)
The tree has about 150 branches arranged in 3 spirals -- there are 156 branches, total, but we usually omit a few of the shortest and longest branches. We decorate it as Dad did, packing each branch full of ornaments. This puts about 1,000 ornaments on the tree, so it takes many hours to set up. Some of the ornaments have been in the family for decades. Unfortunately, a few ornaments tend to get broken every year, and very few of the oldest ones are left. It's been suggested that we try a minimalistic decorating scheme, but we have never done so. Some year, if we are really short on time, we may try it.
The tree lights are C-7 "twinkle" (blinking) bulbs. No LEDs, here -- not yet, anyway. The original lights were hand-wired strings of Bakelite candelabra sockets; I watched my father make them on our kitchen table. (The kitchen is an ideal place to use lead/tin solder, right?!) Cardboard sleeves, painted silver to match the branches, were slid over the sockets to cover the 2 terminal screws for connecting wires to each socket. Thirty years of setup, storage, and teardown took their toll on the wires and sockets, and it was becoming unsafe to use these disintegrating, 120 volt-powered lights on an all-aluminum tree. Besides the safety factor, there were also setup/teardown issues. It's no less tedious to describe than it was to deal with, so I won't go into more detail. No insult to my Dad, though; he was making the most of the technology available to him at the time.
In 2006, I finally found the parts needed to create new strings of lights and new brackets to mount them to the tree. Everything is custom-made, with this tree! With Sandy's help, the Dean's tree sported new lights for the Christmas of 2006. The new lights have white plastic sockets and white wiring; we considered painting them silver (like the original lights) but the white looks fine. With the new lights, there are no exposed electrical contacts (the cardboard sleeves never inspired much confidence). Additional benefits: the bulbs can remain in their sockets during disassembly, there are no sharp metal edges on the mounting brackets, and setup and teardown are much easier and faster.
Garland hides the wiring that runs from branch to branch; that was my mother's idea, dating back to a previous version of the tree. We've used different colors and styles of garland.
A little history: This is version 3 of the tree. Let's call it 3.1 with the new lights. Version 1 was ugly -- I saw a photo, once -- with a mere single spiral of brass tubing. I think my dad replaced it after one Christmas and that my uncle Bernie took tree 1. Version 2 was much better, and we used it for years; it was a double spiral of aluminum. The third try was the charm, moving to a triple spiral. The branch and trunk tubing were basically the same size and material on v2 and v3, but every part was changed. I don't recall what became of tree #2, maybe that also went to an uncle.
The photos below were taken in November, 2003. The first two were taken when testing the lights for the first time that year. The room lights are on in the first photo, and I used flash. No room lights and no flash in the second shot, so look at the pattern on the ceiling. You should see it dance when the lights are blinking! Quite the light show.
The last three pictures were taken during assembly, providing a better view of the trunk and branches. A couple of the photos give you an idea of what the minimalistic look would be. Note the old light mounting brackets at the end of each branch, which would scratch the heck out of your arm if you were not careful enough when hanging ornaments. I'm not sad to have put them into retirement.
And, the tree sings! See, the twinkle bulbs actually make noise. Each bulb makes a tiny little "ping" sound when it switches on or off; this is the twinkle mechanism at work. When it's very, very quiet, the chorus of 150 twinkle bulbs creates a unique sound. I've not yet been able to record the sound.
The mini disco ball at the top is not original. We had a high ceiling in our N.J. house (the tree's original home) so the tree had a beautiful, tall, blown glass topper. With normal ceilings, we've used the disco ball, a star, or an angel.
People sit for hours looking at the tree, watching the patterns of light on the tree, the ceiling and the walls, and (if it's super quiet) listening to the sound.
Any questions? At gmail.com, I am "john.p.mahoney@" (You can figure that out. I'm trying to keep spammers at bay!)
