A Tale of Two Christmas Trees

The following is a guest post--a letter from my dear husband to our missionary son:


So I thought I was pretty smart. Found a big, full, beautiful looking Scots pine tree at this special farm we went to. Didn't cut our own, but it was still sort of an out-in-the-country experience. (Then again, pretty much everything is around here.) Cost £30, which was a bargain, because the other varieties of trees cost more at this size, and this one looked more filled-in. It was about seven feet tall. It loomed. We bought. Ran out of time to buy a stand, but hey--that's easy to fix later, right? And we'll probably save money buying it somewhere else, right?

Loaded the tree in the car. Logan and I together couldn't really carry the darn thing, at least not well, but with some help from the friendly staff at the Christmas farm, we got it in the back of our American behemoth and drove it home. Then we had to figure out how to get it in the living room. Through the too-small sliding glass doors and down the stairs, through the dining room and into the living room? Or should we go the long way around, through the low tunnel in the bushes, over the slimy (eww!) deck, through the other sliding glass door, past the sofa and into the living room? Let's try the first one. Made it! Now get it back outside before it makes a total mess of the house.

Gotta be smart. Gotta stop and cut off the bottom first, right? Gotta get this thing unwrapped and shake out the dead needles, and put up the stand--oh wait, the stand. No problem. I was smart. I'd stopped at the DIY store on the way home--Home Base. They had two kinds of stands, one for £15 and one for way too much. The smaller one looks sturdy enough, I think. Yeah--that'll do. So while I'm sawing off the bottom of my beautiful tree, Mom's inside setting up the nice, brand-new, plastic stand.

Saw, saw saw. Breathe. Saw, saw, saw. Breathe. Man, this is hard to cut through. Takes way longer than I thought it would. Better take off some more branches at the bottom. Getting darker and colder out here. Starting to rain again. Slipping on the slimy deck. Saw, saw saw. Man, my arm's gonna be sore tomorrow. Saw, saw, saw. Why does this lousy saw get stuck so much? Why do I keep thinking every year that I'm going to get the right tool for the job instead of using my little box saw whose box is no longer here, because it's all I've got? Done! Now quick, into the water before it seals itself up again. But wait! It's still got gobs and gobs of dead needles and branches to clear out. Deck's getting covered in a layer of dead pine needles and cut-off boughs. Better than slime, I guess. Maybe it'll disinfect--like PineSol. (Did you really just think that?)

No matter how much I shake and pull, it's going to keep shedding pound after pound of dead stuff. I think it's got leprosy. And speaking of skin, what's with the incredibly painful pricking, followed by the apparent allergic reaction? I can't finish sawing because my hands and arms now itch and hurt and are raising little pink welts. Fa-la-la-la-la. The joys of Christmas. Glad I didn't sell out and get a fake tree, because that just wouldn't be festive--not like this.

Carry it in. Shove the sofa out of the way, lay down a tarp to keep the carpet from gettting covered in a gooey a layer of sappy mud (as the pants I wore to the tree farm did). Drag the tree across the tarp to the corner. Watch the dead stuff leave a nasty trail along the way. Lift it--ouch!--into the stand--which is too narrow for the trunk. Water spilled on the carpet. Season's greetings.

Back outside. Drag, drag. Prop it up on a table. What do I do? Go back for the ridiculously pricey stand? No, that's too expensive. Take the inadequate saw and take off a layer of bark all around the base. Plus a litle more wood. Bring out the stand. Does it fit? No. Drive off to another store--one of the really rare ones that stay open after 5:00pm in England. Do they have tree stands? No. What about the store down the street that sells trees? Closed.

Go home. Lean the stupid tree up in the corner in a five-gallon bucket of water and go to bed.

Part two:

Before coming home from work the next day, went to the shoppette on base and found out they had tree stands. Only about $25. At this point, why not? Bought the stand, brought it home. Tried the trunk. Did it fit? Yes! I was a hero. I could look my wife in the eye. 'Twas the season to be jolly. Lift the tree up. Oh, no--not by myself--that's literally impossible. But with some more grunting, sweating, hoping and only minor hernia hazards, we got it in the stand. Tilt it. Is it straight? No. Try this way--is that straight? Yes. Tighten the bolts. Does it stay? No. Tilt it. Is it straight? I guess. Tighten it some more. Does it stand? No. How about like this? Don't know--I'm a little distracted by the fire ants that are consuming my hands and arms. All right, does it look straight enough? If I tighten it like this, it's a little crooked but will it stand? OK.

Let's decorate. First, I'll put on the lights. Ow! Maybe I can still do this with gloves on? Let me just stop a lot to scratch. Got some lotion for this? All right, the lights are as up as they're gonna get. Bring everyone in for what's left of family home evening time. Tell you what, since the tree's still feasting on my flesh and I'm still trying to deal with the anaphalactic shock, why don't I just put the hooks in and you kids can put the ornaments on. Deal? Cool.

Joy--really. The music's playing, the kids are having fun. The eclectic collection of decorations we've accrued over two decades makes a wonderfully sincere tree. Just like our first real tree, we put the manger ornament up top. The little cupboard-like ornament that opens up to reveal a tiny Joseph and Mary over a tiny baby in a manger. The first time, we used it just because didn't have a star or an angel. But it felt so right, we've kept it up ever since. Because it's not about the stars or even about the angels. It's about the gift in the manger.

It smells Christmasy. It feels Christmasy (except for my arms--and apparently everyone else is feeling the pain too, but we still have fun). Off to bed. Silent Night.

Part three:

A couple of days have gone by. The tree still smells nice. It's even taking some water, but not much. We've swept and vacuumed up a few times and are keeping the dead stuff at bay. The tree tilts. That's the only way it will stay in the stand. Maybe it's just got a heavy side, so it has to lean? It looms. Right at us. Dark and tall. Kids say they can see a monster face in it. Wrong holiday. Been watching Jack Skellington too much? Still, it holds our ornaments, and let's face it, we're all a little off balance too, right? Sure, it will be painful to reach under there and pull out presents, but with the two-year-old functioning pretty much as a human hurricane lately, we really can't put things under there until the last minute anyway. At least the pricklies will discourage him from taking ornaments off. Sort of.

It's evening, and the kids are in bed. I've headed off to do e-mail.

CRASH!

Didn't see it myself, but apparently it was like a slow-motion scene in a movie. Mom et al could see it happening but just couldn't get there in time to do anything about it. Kind of miraculous, though--only one ornament broke. Apparently, Lurch (my festive nickname for the evil tree) had been looming a little too much and just couldn't stand the pressure anymore. I'm raising a white flag and cutting my losses. Let's take off the ornaments. Ow! Grab the calamine lotion. Put the lights and ornaments on the dining table. Lurch, back on the tarp! More dragging, more shoving and grunting. More sweeping up dead needles and soaking through our towel collection getting the water out of the carpet. Out to the slime deck with you, Lurch. You've been a very bad tree. I'm leaving you out here until you've learned your lesson. Or at least until the landlord gives permission to use the fireplace. See the blazing yule before us.

Part four:

Now it's Saturday. A week since we first brought home Lurch. Let's go shopping. Maybe we can get presents for grandmas. Maybe we can get a new tree. No, wait. Let's not make it that simple. Let's just drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and drive around looking for a place to shop for grandmas and get mostly lost. Then, once I'm nice and cranky, we can stop by the store--yep, the same one where we bought the first tree stand--and check their trees. Those fakes are lookin' tempting. No, there's a very pretty one here. A real one. A Nordmann Fir. Look--I can lift it with my own strength, even though it's plenty (six feet) tall! Look--I can touch it--run my fingers through its needles--with no pain at all! Look--it doesn't leave a trail of muddy, sappy, dead needly nastiness on everything it touches! Look--it stands straight! Look--it's a three-minute drive from my house! Look--it's a measly £10 more than the first tree cost.

Why didn't I think of this before?

Wrapped up--easy. Into the car--easy. Cut off the end--well, maybe not as easy as if I got a real saw, but still--easy. Into the stand--no problem! Cut off the wrapping--easy. Put on the lights. Look what I can do! I can touch the branches and needles! I can wrap the lights around and really make this thing shine! Wow--I'm actually running out of lights. Steal the ones from the garland. Steal the ones from the tiny fake tree. Just enough--whew!

Let's decorate! Even more joy--really. How often do you get to do this twice? The music's playing, the lights are gleaming, the kids are proud of their work. I can even help! The lights are wound all the way to the pointy top, and there, at the top, above the cowboy and the baby's first Christmas cradle and Grover in a stocking and candy canes and bulbs and kids' faces from a few grades ago, I place the manger again. Let Earth receive her King.

Joy to the world.