This also grows out of a German custom of putting up a Christmas Village under the tree. Combine that German tradition with the Christmas gift/tradition of a train and you get a beautiful annual event. My uncle always put up his American Flyer trains in a separate room each Christmas. My dad sometimes put up his Lionels. When dad gave me my first HO, it went up in the living room near the tree (on a 4 x 8 layout) every year. Today I always run a train around the tree and my 5 year old daughter has been trained to operate it since her first Christmas.
Santa had a problem: Where to put the new treain set he had just carted all the way down from the North Pole. The middle of the living room floor is definitely out. Somebody will step on it. How about Junior’s room? Not a chance. That room makes Bedlam look like a proper English tearoom, so the little darling can’t show off his new train to Grandma & Grandpa THERE. Besides, the little brat (STRIKE THAT!)…the precious little tyke would probably jump out of bed and step on the dang thing, destroying the engine and cutting his foot, necessitating a trip to the Emergency Room, thus scarring him for life and forcing him into a life of model ships and planes or (HORRORS!) slot cars. The dining room table is a nonstarter. Where would we serve Christmas dinner to the aforementioned Grandparents? Furthermore, one scratch in the tabletop would incur the Wrath of Mom, and that’s not a small issue. Fido would object to the use of his doghouse in the back yards, and it would be hard to run an extension cord out there anyway.
The TREE! Of course. Nobody will step on it because it’s sheltered under the overhanging branches. The metal ties can’t very well scratch the carpet (we’re talking about big ol’ Standard Gauge here, or at least something like Lionel’s version of O gauge). The tree was put up close to the electrical outlet, so there’s a ready-made place to plug the set in. We do have to be sure the metal tinsel doesn’t fall on the track and cause a short, of course (no, Children, tinsel wasn’t always plastic).
My first set came along in 1955. It was a Lionel no. 1615 0-4-0 switcher with (I think) an NYC gondola, a L.V. hopper, a wreck crane, and a work caboose. Santa thought it needed something more, so he added a 6464 series boxcar. In matters of