Aren't there any more icicles ("tinsel") for tree decorations?

Amazon has a good selection here.

I haven’t seen any for a couple of years. The last time we used any, many years ago, the dog apparently ate a strand. How did we know? Because when she pooped, it kinda got stuck and hung out of her butt. Everyone fought over who was going to pull it out.

@chyna, who pulled it out of the poor dog’s Xmas butt? :)

@chyna We had the exact same thing happen with a cat. Bye, bye, tinsel.

Although @Jeruba We always had tinsel (no garland) on trees when I was a child.

@ZEPHYRA I’m pretty sure my mom ended up doing it. Ick.

Tinsel has lost popularity for people who recycle their trees. It has gone the way of flocking.

You can still get tinsel here. I don’t think it’s gone out of fashion here.

@zenvelo, I don’t understand that. What does one have to do with the other?

Several years ago I saw a holiday clearance cart with all the tinsel marked for a nickel each. I bought a stack of it. I still have several unopened packs. I haven’t noticed if they still sell it in my neighborhood.

I can understand why it’s being used less and less. Animals eat it, which could lead to death or illness of a family pet. It gets a static charge, so sticks to everything and gets tracked all around the house, to be picked up and thrown away a strand at a time over the coming year. And, as @zenvelo said, if you want to recycle your tree, that means pulling it all off – not what most people consider Boxing Day fun. I could never understand why people used the stuff.

When I was (we were) a kid, (kids) @Jeruba , tinsel was made of lead. It tossed nicely, but was expensive to produce and – well you know – toxic.

Where it was placed, it hung.

The good ole days. Then my family burned the tree, tinsel included.

@dappled_leaves, yes, I always pull it all off. It takes a few minutes. I don’t see the problem. (And I usually do find a few strands around the house in odd places, like caught in the folds of a drape, until about August. It affects me like a little whiff of pine scent and makes me smile: a belated holiday memory.)

@ibstubro, yes, I remember those accordion-folded strips. We were not allowed to toss but had to hang them singly, with care, each one vertical, not draped across branches, because they were, you know, icicles. My mother’s rules. When I grew up, I put them on my own tree in little clumps, and I even tossed a few toward the top. Take that, mother.

But the mylar ones never worked as well, and some portion of a package would just get hopelessly snarled and have to be thrown out.

When I was a youngster, our tree would go out back after New Year’s to become a snack bar for the birds. My father would put bread crusts on it and tie little strips of suet to the branches so birds could peck at them. It stood in the snow all the rest of the winter.

@Here2_4, that sounds kind of final.

@Earthbound_Misfit, the icicles, you mean, yes? Where are you?

@chyna, @marinelife, I always tried to catch them on the front end. I also left them off the lowest branches. Cats learned after a year or two just to ignore the whole tree business.

@ZEPHYRA, so glad you asked that.

@Hawaii_Jake, I don’t know if I can bring myself to pay those prices. People must have stockpiled them when they phased out, and I missed it because I’d laid in a supply a few years earlier.

So—one more violable tradition.

@Jeruba As you and @dappled_leaves discussed, some people may pull it all off, but many of us consider that a pain that does not merit the limited aesthetic of silvery threads on the tree. I prefer ornaments and small lights,

@zenvelo, and of course I would never insist that someone else do it. I’m just disappointed that something that I like to use—and that has been in common use—is no longer available to those like me who want it.

(I use ornaments and small lights too. And tinsel garlands. No such thing as too much shiny and sparkly stuff at this time of year.)

@Jeruba, you can buy it on ebay. I just had a look. Lots of the sellers seem to be in your part of the world. I’m in Australia.

@Jeruba , I understand your pain. I went into a gray funk for years every Christmas because it became illegal to sell bubble lights, and ours got too old and gave up. The bubble lights were my favorite. They finally changed the recipe, and now they can occasionally be found.

I saw bubble lights the other day – some store had retro stuff. I think it was JC Penney.

Memories

I don’t know if this is the main reason (or the only one) but if you read any of the various warning lists from Veterinarians or the ASPCA, regarding dangers to pets, tinsel is ALWAYS on them.

It can cause very significant internal problems (either causing death or requiring major surgery) because it can cause internal blockages, get wrapped around or cutting areas of the colon particularly in cats. They love shiny dangly things.

To me, the risk just isn’t worth it no matter how much of a nostalgia trip it provides. It’s just not feasible to watch cats 24/7 and they just have a knack for finding trouble.

I haven’t looked for tinsel in years, If I see some locally, I’ll send you a few boxes!

When I was little, my mom was the tinsel police, too. One strand at a time, carefully placed. Then we got a cat, and experienced the joys of her tinsel-trailing butt. That was the end of tinsel (and most ornaments, too) on the lower third of the tree. If I remember correctly, we didn’t use it after that Christmas.

I was surprised to see some at Walmart the other day.

We used tinsel every year when I was growing up, but my tastes have changed so I don’t use it now.

As a side note. I know someone who ( a loooong time ago) used to work at a factory that made Chaff for the military . The stuff was used to protect fighter aircraft by confusing enemy radar and heat seeking missiles. Occasionally a lot would not fold correctly or would be rejected for some other reason and would be classified as trash. The rejects were sometimes used for tinsel.

Rumour has it, Liberace’s pubes were formed from golden tinsel.
Seriously though, over here tinsel is those long thing strands that you basically throw onto the tree.
The stuff you hang from your ceiling is called streamers in our neck of the wooded glade.

The lead foil ones from the 1940’s and 1950’s are looong gone in the USA.

Christmas Central

$3.99 for 500 18” strands

It looks as though Germany is still producing the original lead tinsel?