National Christmas Tree

The sale of fresh-cut Christmas trees may not rack up the billions spent on clothing or electronics at this time of year, but Americans did buy 27 million holiday conifers last year, dropping $976 million in the process. (And that number doesn’t include fake trees—real trees usually outsell the fake ones by a margin of 3 to 1, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.)
Which means it was probably just a matter of time before independent farmers, who have historically dominated the Christmas tree business, would get a snowball in their collective face with the arrival of big-box chain competition.
Indeed, while Lowe’s has been selling fresh-cut trees out of its garden centers for two decades now, and Costco is in its third season selling evergreens, the trend recently has picked up steam. Target started last year, and Kmart and Sears just entered the fray this season.


The tree in the photo above is the National Christmas Tree, the official U.S. TOTUS. It's not to be confused with the White House Christmas Tree, which arrives in the Blue Room each year as a gift from Christmas tree lobbyists competing for the president's attention (no joke). The nation's highest spruce outdid itself this year in environmental friendliness, using General Electric's LED lights to burn at just under 2,000 watts. It's the most energy-efficient tree of its kind in U.S. history.


The tree has a strange lump jutting forth from its top, making it look like the titular monster from the 1993 LucasArts videogame, Day of the Tentacle. Or maybe more like Kuato from Total Recall. If you touch the tree, will it read your mind?


Perhaps the problem here is the net of LED lights that is thrown over the tree as if a half-blind whaler had mistaken it for his next paycheck. A bough does appear to be caught up in there in the way a loose fin would. But the other Christmas trees around the park seem normal enough... what gives.