100 Years of Christmas Tree Trends in Photos

Walker says artificial trees made from dyed goose or turkey feathers started in Germany in the late 1800s and were brought to America by immigrants. The feather-and-wire creations looked a lot like pint-size pine trees. Their diminutive size, coupled with the growing popularity of real trees, contributed to their fading fashion. Yet, “many of these antiques are expensive treasures today,” Walker says.

The 1920s also ushered in another major tree-decorating shift: electric lights replacing candles. The technology had been around for some 40 years, but up until this point, lights were too expensive for the average American.

Cost of Christmas decorations was top of mind for many families in the 1930s. “Throughout the Depression Era, it was unlikely that average and impoverished Americans had extra funds to spend on a faux Christmas tree,” Walker says. “Instead, they turned to the real thing itself.” The introduction of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in 1931 also likely fueled the demand.

Wartime shortages—as well as a rejection of ornaments with ties to Germany and Japan—in the 1940s led to simple, homemade décor, including popcorn garlands. Thrifty yet festive, these ornaments also reflected a societal embrace of crafts and nostalgia.

A 1945 issue of Better Homes and Gardens made an early foray into the upcycling trend, offering instructions on using items found in nature and old tin can parts to trim the tree. “Tired of tinsel? Make decorative swags by stringing pinecones,” an article read. “Medium-sized pinecones are prettiest when brushed with silver, green, or red gilt paint from the dime store, and fastened on paper ribbon 6 inches apart.”

The post-war boom reshaped holiday style. “With the exuberance of the ending of the war,” Walker says, “Americans were eager to spend”—including on Christmas decor. Americans embraced flocked trees, real or artificial, that were coated in white to mimic snow.

The 1950s were also the era of Shiny Brite ornaments, Walker adds, “with the mass-produced glass ornaments offering splashes of bright color to the Christmas trees.”

In 1964, Time magazine announced artificial Christmas trees were a growing holiday craze, noting that polyvinyl trees accounted for 35 percent of the U.S. tree business. Sales of Evergleam aluminum trees from the Wisconsin-based Aluminum Specialty Co. peaked in the mid-1960s, when the retailer held a 60 to 65 percent market share in America and Canada. The silver Christmas trees were sold in department stores nationwide, and retailers found a clever way to add color.

“The demand for color continued throughout the 1960s with the rise of aluminum trees that were lit from below by a rotating color wheel,” Walker says. “They were highly successful commercially, and today, like flocked trees, are valuable antiques.”

Amid the soaring popularity of the fake tree, the 1965 hit “A Charlie Brown Christmas” launched an alternative tree fad: the small and sparse natural tree.

The 1970s saw a resurgence of homemade ornaments that echoed the ’40s. This time the trend wasn’t fueled by shortage, though. It marked a rebuke of the commercialization of the previous two decades as well as an embrace of eco-friendly ethos. “Environmental consciousness, especially, affected the move to create different types of Christmas trees less harmful to the planet,” Walker says. One groovy alternative was macrame trees.

The homemade look paled in comparison to the excess of the ’80s. “Christmas trees were now class-status objects like everything else and were marked by bright colors and different themes and colors that were matched by the presents under the tree,” Walker says.

Artificial trees that came prelit gained serious traction in the early ’90s. “The 1990s made decorating for the busy family even easier with trees that already had their lights wrapped around the branches,” Walker says. The era also screamed maximalism; the more kitschy ornaments, the merrier.

Environmentally friendly LED lights hit their stride in the 2000s, with versions that could easily change color, be programmed to music for a light show and work well outdoors. The annual U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree (pictured) used all LED lights for the first time in 2006, and the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree followed suit the next year. By the end of the decade, LED tree lights were the new standard.

Artificial trees continue to dominate the U.S. market. A 2025 survey by the nonprofit American Christmas Tree Association found 83 percent of households opt for a fake tree. Another sustainability trend has cropped up in the past few years: renting live potted trees that can be returned and reused for years.

While earlier trends have shaped today’s tree trimmings, Walker says Americans have put our own personalized—and “even funky”—spin on decor. “Think about how you can now create a Star Wars tree or, for me, personally, a tree full of ornaments representing Shakespearean characters,” she says. “Involved in that process, too, of course, is a special brand of American capitalism.” Like department stores a century ago, today’s online marketplaces advertise particular Christmas aesthetics that impact decorating trends, Walker says, “more than we perhaps consciously realize.”