Picture Box: Flocking for the holidays
Celeste Van Kirk
Stan Malarbi flocks a Christmas tree for a customer at Joseph’s Nursery in Monessen.
Celeste Van Kirk
Michael Joseph bags a flocked Christmas tree for a customer at Joseph’s Nursery in Monessen. The nursery is one of a very few in the area that offers the option.
Stan Malarbi moves a flocked Christmas tree from the spraying area to dry.
Celeste Van Kirk
An unusual live green flocked Christmas tree and a pink pine swag created at Joseph's are shown in this 2011 photo.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Lenny Boso makes custom tree stands for the Christmas trees at Joseph’s Nursery in Monessen.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Lenny Boso attaches tree stands to all the Christmas trees at Joseph’s Nursery in Monessen.
In this 2011 photo, Mike Joseph explains the process of flocking Christmas trees at his family-owned business, Joseph's Nursery and Garden Center in Monessen.
I’ve personally never had a real Christmas tree. We’ve always unboxed the ceremonial faux shrubbery each season, shedding plastic pine-colored scraps – and tinsel from that one Christmas long ago. How is there still tinsel on the tree two decades later? – all over the carpet.
A majority of households across the country will perform a similar song and dance this season: wrestling with branches that never quite sit right, untangling the lights shoved carelessly in a box – why didn’t we wrap these nicely? – and placing baubles just so.
But though fake trees are common, many households opt for a real Christmas tree. According to the National Christmas Tree Association, yes, a real association, 32.8 million real Christmas trees were purchased in 2018.
The tradition of cutting down the family tree is one we’re all familiar with, even if we’ve never done it ourselves, thanks to television and movies.
One live tree tradition that’s harder to find is flocking, or spraying a tree down with a textured mixture to add color. Locally, Joseph’s Nursery & Garden Center in Monessen still sells about a hundred flocked trees each year. White is the most popular color, but they craft many shades: red, pink, blue, purple and even black for some Steelers fans.
We’ve collected photos of these striking trees from Christmases not so long ago.
Happiest of holidays to you and yours.
Trista Thurston, digital operations director and magazine co-editor