Aluminum Christmas tree

A vintage aluminum Christmas tree

An aluminum Christmas tree is a type of artificial Christmas tree that was popular in the United States from 1958 until about the mid-1960s. As its name suggests, the tree is made of aluminum, featuring foil needles and illumination from below via a rotating color wheel.

The aluminum Christmas tree was used as a symbol of the commercialization of Christmas in the 1965 television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, which discredited its suitability as a holiday decoration. By the mid-2000s aluminum trees found a secondary market online, often selling for high premiums. The trees have also appeared in museum collections.