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At some point a few years ago, a well-meaning relative got me a very thoughtful Christmas ornament: a little blown-glass vintage car of indeterminate make with a tree on top of it. It was perfect! Everybody knows I like old cars! And then someone else got me one, too, and after that the floodgates opened.
Now my house, and tree, is full of ’em (I’m including cars piled high with presents, which I consider a varietal, rather than a distinct species, here as well). And though I’m mostly just showing the ornaments today, I also have a collection of seasonal dish towels, coffee mugs, a pile of gift bags and other assorted tchotchkes bearing the image. I even have a T-shirt emblazoned with a tree-toting Jeep Grand Wagoneer. If I didn’t wind up with more of this stuff after this year, I’d be genuinely surprised—there’s an inexhaustible supply of it.
Presumably very few people designing or buying these ornaments grew up driving home from a U-cut lot somewhere in Connecticut with a tree atop the ’50 Town and Country hardtop. So how did this concept, this holiday archetype, get so big? I have a few ideas.
First, the car/tree image is about as harmlessly, inoffensively secular as you can get while still being recognizable as a symbol of the Winter Holiday Season. As far as basically nonreligious Christmas-affiliated imagery goes, it’s about on the same level as nutcrackers and gingerbread men.
Second, they let ornament-makers sell something instantly recognizable, yet totally un-branded. Though I did at one point own an ornament featuring a Santa-driven Jeep Wrangler with a tree riding shotgun, that was an outlier. The majority of the time it’s just a generic old car—which means no licensing fees paid to vehicle manufacturers.
Finally, while people buy me these ornaments because I am a Known Car Guy, it’s an image that resonates with just about everybody, no matter their age, even if they don’t have a gearhead bone in their body.
And that’s probably the most interesting aspect of this: The image of a tree atop a vaguely classic vehicle has become a veritable icon of the quasi-religious Holiday Season. And while it may have been born of nostalgia for a specific era (the era that spawned films like White Christmas and Holiday Inn), it has evidently transcended that temporal context. The focus of our nostalgia has to a large extent precessed from the era recalled by an object to the object itself. I have never really understood the appeal of A Christmas Story, but I assume a similar phenomenon is responsible for that movie’s enduring popularity.
Werner Herzog could probably do an entire film on this theme. Me? I’m content to keep hanging little blown glass cars on our Christmas tree. And last year, my wife and I took it a step further:
Life imitating art. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and see you all in the new year!
