California town roasted for ‘embarrassing’ Christmas tree: ‘Who let this happen?’
The new net lights decorating a mammoth Christmas tree in downtown Tulare, California, seemed like an overwhelming success — until the backlash, that is.
“The kids love that tree,” John Harman, director of the Tulare Downtown Association, said in a phone interview with McClatchy News on Thursday.
The tree — a coastal redwood towering 65 feet above a small park — was the centerpiece of a holiday parade in the Central Valley city on Dec. 5. This year the tree was decorated with $1,200 in net lights after complaints last year that there wasn’t enough sparkle on the tree, Harman said. A parade committee fundraised for the new decorations.
“That parade is geared toward the kids, and the tree is geared toward the kids — so for that demographic, it was a smash hit,” he said.
But reaction to the net lights on social media was another story: Commenters on Facebook and Twitter compared the tree to a condom or a whale net, the Visalia Times-Delta reported, with critics lambasting the trimmings as “janky,” “embarrassing” and “tacky.”
“What’s going on in Tulare?” one person asked on Twitter, sharing a photo of the tree. “Who went to the Christmas tree lighting? Who let this happen?”
Another poster wrote on Facebook that “they need to take this down immediately.”
“We were absolutely astonished,” Harman said, adding that the tree’s net lights were put up Thanksgiving weekend before the parade. “This was the first time we tried net lights.”
Harman said the net lights were a solution to the fact that there were areas of the tree with no foliage that needed to be covered up. It was also designed to address gripes that previous years’ string lights weren’t extensive enough.
“We decided maybe the best thing to do would be to get big curtain lights that look like nets. It would cover up those holes and add some symmetry to the unruly tree,” he said. “That was the plan, and obviously the plan did not work.”
The tree’s “controversial” net lights were shut off on Tuesday night, Harman said.
“Last night, I noticed some of the posts were getting pretty vitriolic,” Harman said.
Still, the tree has its defenders online.
“Does this tree look perfect? No it does not,” Kerry Nimitz said in a Facebook post on the controversy, per the Times-Delta. “While I did not work on the tree myself, I thank the guys who gave up their time and were away from their families to try and do something nice for Tulare.”
On Twitter, another person commented that “everyone is hating on the Christmas tree in Tulare but I bet not one of those people went to try and get involved in the process or donated money to help.”
Local leaders have also voiced their support for the tree, Harman said. Even the mayor, who sits on the downtown association board, has weighed in.
“It’s maybe a little too late to make any big changes (to the tree) this year .... We’ll work together to see what we can do about next year,” Tulare Mayor Jose Sigala said, according to the Times-Delta.
Harman said the tree has even drawn new visitors downtown.
“I’ve talked to several business owners who have said, ‘Thanks for doing that. Nobody knew that tree existed and now everyone knows — and we’re excited,”” Harman said.
Harman added that the tree decorators are accepting donations to fund more lighting for the tree in the future.
This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 2:16 PM with the headline "California town roasted for ‘embarrassing’ Christmas tree: ‘Who let this happen?’."
