Anomalies of French life: Chemical Christmas trees

French Christmas trees all too often look like this.

Don't ask me why.

Comments

[greubeuld]

The obvious answer would be "so they look like they are covered in snow !".
But today it's like 10°C outside here in Paris so I doubt it has been snowing

Therefore my answer would be: "No the Tchernobyl cloud didn't cross our frontier"

Serioulsy why do they even sell those ?

[L'Amerloque]

Hi !

/*/Serioulsy why do they even sell those ?/*/

One reason is to sell damaged/stale/dry trees. By hiding the defects in a white goo, the distributor/seller can ensure that such a tree is not a total loss. If he/she manages to sell it, of course. (smile)

Another reason might be that a lot of people appreciate the "traditional Victorian Christmas" – the one so often depicted with snow, sleighs, and roaring Yule logs.

These images date from when Europe was emerging from the "Little Ice Age", which lasted from 1550 to about 1850. The Victorians were particularly nostalgic for the mini-Ice Age of the 1790s, when the Thames froze over. A snowy tree, undecorated, is in keeping with that nostalgia. (smile)

Best,
L'Amerloque

[Sedulia]

Well, I have lived in some very snowy places, and real trees in the snow, of course, are nothing like the poisonous-looking things for sale in Paris. They don't have snow sticking to the underside of their branches, for one thing.

Here are some real ones:

http://www.lincolnmaine.us/large_images/snowy_yard.jpg

Interesting theory, though, about the bad trees! And maybe if someone had never seen snow, they would think the chemical snow looked sweet. I suspect these chemically coated trees are going out of style, anyway. I don't seem to see as many as ten years ago.

[Remy]

Wow, this post made my day.
I was born and raised in Biarritz, which is located in the south western tip of France. We barely got any snow down there... Maybe a few snow flakes once every few years.
Then, to make matters worse, we moved to the Carribeans where snow was inexistant. We really didn't know what a snow covered christmas tree should have looked like, but every year my mother would buy a tree just like that picture.

I've been living in Iowa/Minnesota for the last 6 years, so I basically live in snow.
I now realize how ugly those trees where. Thank you for posting that picture, it brought back good memories...kind of.

[LA Frog]

The Los Angeles Times recently wrote "Thirty tons of snow are forecast to fall today in the balmy Bixby Knolls area of Long Beach." I nearly had a heart attack. Turns out it's all fake snow:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yee5vn
Nothing beats the real snow.

[L'Amerloque]

Hi Sedulia !

Actually it's a bit more than theoretical. (smile) Once, when Amerloque was out a Christmas tree farm choosing a family sapin for the forthcoming festivities, he saw the farmer fellows flocking a really sick-looking, browning tree. (grin)

Hence Amerloque extrapolated that when a tree is, er, deficient, it's covered in white goo.

Best,
L'Amerloque

[nat]

the snow on the threes can still be found esaily!
a new release of the tree with snow could be found last year: red snow on some trees!
I'm going to check whether some of those are still 'fashionable' this year!