It was beautiful today, the fine coating of white snow sparkling in the sunshine. The evergreens and the glossy clusters on the Rhododendron wore little white berets; not hats, but small coverlets of puffs. Puffs which reminded me of Christmas trees of long ago during the 20's and the Great Depression of the 30's.. It was not nature that put those finishing white puffs there. Oh no, it was done by human hands, in a vain effort to mimic the beauty of winter's icy fingers on the very tips of the trees. During the 1920's, there were no trees growing in our subdivision in the rural east side of Detroit. The woods which had held trilliums, ferns, camomile, violets and jack-in-the-pulpits had been thoroughly scoured clean to the bare bosom of the earth. Not a single tree had been left standing. Where we children had run home in fright when we saw a colored gypsy wagon, there were now more houses being built, as well as an elementary school., There were now rows of houses on 40 ft. wide lots sprouting up like mushrooms. Our dirt roads, yet to be paved, led to much mud tracking in to our new homes. So, being treeless for miles in every direction, we bought our Christmas tree from a man who had set up shop on the empty lot next to our house. I would watch each day as fat evergreens, full of thick branches, were carted away. I made it my business to inform my Dad that soon there would be none left. He assured me that there would be some left by Christmas Eve; and, besides, he was not going to pay $5.00 for a tree to later be thrown away. He was right. As Christmas was upon us, when the man started dismantling his remaining meager bunch of trees from his sales lot, there were a few scroungy ones left. They were the lop-sided ones (which could be turned toward the wall to hide the imperfections.) There were also trees with very few branches - skinny and pitiful looking, I thought. Besides, when the man would not donate them to anyone who wanted to cart them away, he did accept a dollar or two to clear out the stragglers.. But Dad assured me that there would be less work in trimming the tree, less areas to hang gaily colored glass balls and garlands of silver and gold. These garlands, retreived from many previous years, were almost stripped bare but they still would hide empty spots. Well, almost hide those spots. And, besides, he said we could always put puffs of cotton batting on the tips of the branches to make them look like they had been touched by the snow fairy. There were no electrified raindeer, or Santas, or sleighs lighting up our front yard. Progress had not yet invented outdoor decorating, so we concentrated on the little tree. We hung the strings of colored lights, great big hot-burning bulbs which had the unfortunate habit of giving out once they were festooned around the tree. If one bulb died, the whole string went out. This led to much frantic scrambling to unstring the recalcitrant line - if you could find it. These exasperating faulty lights were the ones that did not show up when we tested the lines before putting them on the tree. No, they had to wait until the tree had many other decorations put on it, befeore they decided to extinguish their lights! The decorations were delicate glass marvels of craftsmnship; which unfortunately broke into many sharp pieces if they fell off of those wire contraptions that were attached to the tree. We saved these wires from year to year and they got rather worn, sprung out, and tired after a while. Nothing was ever thrown out that could be of any possible use in the coming years That's why we had an overflowing attic and basement; full of cupboards and shelves my Dad had built! (Maybe that is why I squirrel away paper clips and hairpins, and such. In those days, when you were trained, you stayed trained!. I knew Santa Claus would come, even if he was too roly-poly to shinny down our tiny fireplace. Hadn't he brought me a baby doll the year before and left his huge foot prints on the snow of our front porch, even dragging some into the front room and directly to the tree? I saw the footprints with my own eyes, when I sneaked out of bed just after midnight to take a peak and check up on him. There was a Santa Claus! Which leads me to the puff balls, We put little shreds of cotton batting on the tips of the branches to resemble fallen snow. And that is what I remembered today when I saw the tips of the trees festooned in the same manner. I could write reams about the evolution of Chistmas trees from that time to the present. Remember these trees, from the whitewashed beauties to those awful aluminum trees which folded up like umbrellas when the season was over? Years later ,in the 70's, I had a table-sized aluminum affair in my diving room for the grandchildren. This was decorated entirely with sports-minded Santas. Some figures were playing tennis, skiing, at bat, skating. They were all delightfully stuffed in their little red velvet suits. One year I decided to let the little ones hang up their own Santas on that tree. You guessed it, They hung them all on one side and that monstrous aluminum thing toppled over. Of course, Santas stuffed into red velvet suits did not shatter into little pieces when dropped from their perches. So, the little ones were a little more skilled in hanging the Santas on the second try, and the little tree stood upright, replete with fat sports figures. But, no puff balls. That fire hazard was soon replaced by silver icycles which left a terrible mess for my poor mother to clean up. Although we carefully saved the silver icycles for future years, my mother was still discovering one or two the next summer. Like a child, the memories kept flooding back to me, as I saw the little white berets on the tips of the trees and bushes today, and I was enchanted. Lorraine