O Christmas Tree: Deck the halls with boughs of metal

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Jon and Judy Benson (Brian Korthals/Daily Globe)

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Judy and Jon Benson’s Christmas tree doesn’t have any tinsel. The light that illuminates it comes from below, not from individual lights on its branches. But it’s still got plenty of sparkle.

The Worthington couple is enjoying their first year of having an unconventional Christmas tree.

“For a couple of years, we had one of those fake trees that was very pathetic,” shared Judy. “So last year we decided we were going to put it out at the curb and let somebody else have it.”

Judy had first spied the all-metal tree in a catalogue a few years ago, so she placed the order and waited for it to arrive.

“It was on back order, so we waited and waited for it,” she said. “We thought maybe the storm out east maybe wrecked the warehouse that it was in or something, so we gave up on even getting it, but it finally came.”

The tree stands 7 feet high, and each branch is curled at the end to support ornaments.

“We could have a lot more ornaments on it than we do, but a few years ago we took our ornaments and went through them, kept the ones we liked the best and sent a box of ornaments to each of my three kids because we had so many,” Judy said. “I knew it had to have some light on it, so I took the two matching lamps off my dresser upstairs and put them on the floor with 150-watt bulbs in them.”

Judy was enamored of the new Christmas tree right away, but for Jon it took a bit of convincing.

“He said a tree should be green,” Judy related. “Then I said ‘Go outside and look at it at night when it’s lit up.’ He came back in and said, ‘Yes, I like it.’ It just took a little persuasion. And there are no messy needles that are going to drop.”

Tags: christmas trees, lifestyle, people, benson