I haven’t seen one strand of tinsel in eons. The spaghetti string kind my mom used to throw on the Christmas tree. One can find them on Amazon. But if I could go back to the attic at 2020 Grand Avenue there might be a bag of silver strands tucked in a corner. Mom used to pluck the tinsel off the evergreen, and rake them off the wool area rug for the next year.

            Raise your hand if you know about this Christmas tree frill. Boomers put them down. You were the ones who strung the popcorn (cooked in a pan with oil on the stove) and threaded a needle through 273 cranberries to lasso the Tannenbaum. In the sixties there was much more to forage post-holiday.

            Why did this type of tinsel fade away? Maybe a cat hit each silver noodle like a tetherball until he swatted so high the Star of Wonder fell. Perhaps a baby on the crawl got ahold of one. Nobody noticed until the child sneezed and a shiny booger descended from a nostril. Could be the tinsel factory shut down after workers filed a lawsuit. They suffered carpal tunnel from excessive scissoring of the sheets of foil.

            The urban legend is the Ho Ho Ho Man put a stop to it. In ’67 his red asbestos suit with a black belt (was Santa a sensei of the North Pole dojo?) generated a massive amount of static electricity as he slid down one chimney after another. By the time he returned home his attire was as silver as his beard. Mrs. Claus was not happy.

            Most likely it was the strip mining (they came in strips after all) in Pennsylvania which succumbed to massive protests. Punxsutawney Phil was put on the endangered list. Thus ended tinsel harvesting.

            There must be a silver lining somewhere.