The short answer is: It seems not.

But, the question invites a deep dive into the history of Christmas trees and Christmas decorations, more broadly, in San Francisco’s Union Square.

Pull up a chair for the long answer. It’s a fascinating and occasionally surprising story that includes some wonderful rarely seen archival photographs of Christmas in Union Square over the last century.

Bonus: Research for this article produced dates (years) for three photographs of Christmas trees in Union Square that previously either were incorrectly or imprecisely dated or were undated.