Christmas Trees specialty of ‘Mr. Christmas’

With 1000 glass ornaments and 1300 lights, 'Mr. Christmas' decorates the quintessential Christmas Tree

Many families start thinking of putting up decorations and their tree’s around Thanksgiving, some before. Others, the tree and all the tinsel wait until those few days before Christmas.

Merle Mann aka ‘Mr. Christmas’, his wife Tami and their family share with everyone their passion of Christmas Trees. This started over 20 years ago with the purchase of the family’s first artificial tree. They now have 16 themed trees decorating their home.

With so many themed trees to see and wonder at, a person might wonder where they find all these unique ornaments. Mann said he gets the ornaments from many places such as auctions, flea markets or garage sales.

Finding ornaments for some tree’s are easier than others of course. Tami works for Pepsi, and they give employee’s an ornament every year, so of course you have a Pepsi tree.

Their oldest daughter has a Pooh tree. She has since moved from home, and took the tradition with her along with her own tree. One son has a sports themed tree, the other a transportation theme. The oldest son has a woodsy outdoor themed tree, while the youngest is decked out in penguins.

Each of the children have their own tree skirt, and that skirt has a fabric cutout of the child’s hand. That fabric cutout is then sewn to the tree skirt, much like any other way of marking the growth of our children.

There is the party tree. This started from a gift ornament one year of a wine bottle. Without a suitable place on any other tree, Mann did what he does best, and the party tree was created. Or as he will sometimes refer to it, the non-religious tree.

The Hallmark Miniture Ornament tree at Merle Mann's residence

There is a snowman tree, a Hallmark miniature ornament tree, a teddy bear tree and a reindeer tree. There is a Fall themed tree that was set in place in September to help celebrate the season. These are all part of the group that also includes a nativity tree, and another tree to welcome visitors to the laundry room. Last but not least are the farm tree, and most important Santa has his own themed tree as well.

The master bedroom has a patriotic themed tree to decorate that room for the season as well.

Mann’s favorite tree has to be the main tree in the living room that has 1000 ornaments on it. Those are highlighted and complimented by 1300 lights. The tree started with 600 to 700 ornaments. One day he was looking at the tree and decided that the “back” of the tree had too much green on it, so now the family slides the tree out, decorates the back, then they push it back into place and decorate that. If you ever think of that classical Christmas Tree, this is the one you would imagine was in your living room.

You can view pictures of many of Merle’s tree’s on our Facebook Page by clicking on this LINK.