Tuesday, December 23, 2014

O Tannenbaum!





Christmas trees can be as varied as people - tall, short, round, elegant, and sometimes just sad. 
At our house we’ve proved that Charlie Brown doesn’t have a monopoly on quirky.



     We always bought live trees and we acquired them from all sorts of places over the years. We did occasionally go to an actual lot, but when the kids were little we often cut our own. This produced mixed results. 

     There was the year we drove all the way out (really only 25 minutes) from the city where we lived to the town of my in-laws (where we now live) and went to a Christmas tree farm. We tramped around from tree to tree, one of the kids dragging the cross-buck hand saw. One tree would look good, then another, until we finally found one we all liked. My husband lay on the ground and sawed away and the tree was ours.
     After it sat in the garage for a couple of days we hauled it in and wrestled it into the tree stand and stood back. It was barely taller than our children.



     The farmer had planted his trees like any other crop, in raised furrows, so that the tree had looked at least a foot taller out in the field. 



     Another year we drove even farther to a picturesque farm on a hillside where the trees enjoyed a stunning view of the small valley below as they grew. Here the procedure was a bit different. You could swing by at your leisure, choose your tree, affix the tag they provided, and then return to cut it down at a later date.
      However, word was out that in previous years there had been nefarious and distinctly un-Christmassy incidents. Some people who had been unable to find a tree to their liking had actually surreptitiously switched the tags. 

     We decided we’d fix their wagon. 

    We tied an infinite number of ribbons all over our tree of choice until it looked like the hair-ragged skull of Little House on the Prairie’s Nellie Oleson. While we did foil the tag switchers, we did have to unknot all those tightly tied ribbons before we could decorate. 

     A few years later we moved out of the city. That year I was transported by the magic of small town living, and bought our Thanksgiving turkey from the farm on Main Street. When I needed milk on my way home from work I would bypass the quick-stop places and instead patronize the small store in the middle of town.   
     So when the Lions’ Club set up their annual Christmas tree lot in Gazebo Park, even though it had been there since shortly after Thanksgiving, I couldn’t resist the idea of buying a tree right on Main Street . 

     We chose one, a real beauty, and put it in the garage where we would saw off a fresh section of the trunk when we were ready to bring it in. The big day came and we dragged it into the house. We weren’t too far into the light stringing before we realized the tree had been a message center for every cat in town. The heady aroma (and not of pine) finally did fade, but the tree had a tendency to list and I’d start every day by checking the living room to see if it was still upright.

          In the later years of our careers, my husband was usually on a plane or in some other city, while teaching filled much of my day. As a result, on more than one occasion I would be stopping at the nearest stand by myself, slowing down only long enough to grab the first one I saw. 

       So we did the unthinkable. We bought a fake tree.

          This year we pulled it out of the shed again, put it up in the living room and noticed little clumps of fibers and leaves in the branches. Not only that, but it had a distinctly gamey odor. 
  
   Apparently the shed mice, who have already completely destroyed my husband’s baseball mitt collection and several flags, had been cozying up in our tree. A typhoon of Febreze pretty much solved the problem, but I’m beginning to view those cold aluminum trees of the 50s in a whole new light.  





18 comments:

  1. Mice? Oh Dear! Was the tree in its box? I pack mine in the box and seal it with duct tape, but not having a shed, I shove it way up in the top of the wardrobe. My daughter has hers in a 240 litre sized heavy duty garbage bag. She put that on the floor years ago, stood the tree over it and decorated. Then after Christmas she carefully pulled the bag up over the tree, decorations and all and sealed it with duct tape. Every year since, all she does is place the tree, roll down the bag and put tinsel around the base so the bag can't be seen.
    I think fake trees are a much better deal because you don't have to buy a new one each year and there is no problem with falling pine needles.

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  2. You've had some interesting times with Christmas trees. Have a great Christmas.

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  3. You have a good memory as I can only remember a few of our trees. Watch the mice issues as they can bring disease even if it is just body parts.

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    1. Whoops, hadn't thought of that. No body parts in sight yet, though.

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  4. We had a 'stubby' tree one year as well.

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    1. I forgot to mention that we often put our shorter trees on ammo cans 'liberated' from my husband's stint in the Army. Something of a mixed message at Christmas time, I suppose!

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  5. Oh, I had to laugh about the cat piss smell! That is one of the worst odors and you're lucky it finally did go away. River tells a good story in her comment. Never thought of that as a way to decorate! Merry Christmas, Marty. I found you just this year and am glad to have you in my blogosphere. :-)

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    1. Glad I found you, too, DJan. I really enjoy reading about your adventures.
      Merry Christmas.

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  6. Long, long ago I remember travelling near and far for a tree. I remember the tree we had to stabilize with guy wires to the wall. The tree so large it had to go on the front porch. For the last ten years it has been a tall, thin pencil tree. It disappears into my brother in law's work room on January 1st.

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    1. We've had some some pretty tippy trees, too. Although the whatever cats we had at the time weren't any help either.

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  7. We always had a live tree when I was growing up, the bigger the better and we had tall ceilings. but since I grew away from christianity as I became an adult, I don't do trees at all or decorate. I love other people's trees though and like to look at their ornaments. I love the ornaments and have a few from my childhood. some of them are like little works of art.

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    1. Our tree is pretty secular. By Christmas day our Jewish grandsons have usually decorated its boughs and the floor below with army men.

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  8. My dad always said someone would get electrocuted by one of those tinsel trees! I've always had a real tree and usually my cat enjoys it a bit too much and something gets broken. I have a permanent nail in the molding around the front window where the tree is anchored every year!
    Merry Christmas to you and yours!

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  9. I do enjoy your posts! We use an artificial tree now too and I feel bad about it every Christmas. I used to love looking for the right tree. Thing sure have a way of changing. I love the picture.

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  10. Well, at least you bother with a Christmas tree, which is a step farther than I go! We've certainly had our share of quirky real ones in past seasons, though -- so far without any feline aroma, thankfully.

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  11. we have fake trees now too...the real ones are fire hazards...and messy. I enjoyed your trip down memory lane with your trees! Merry Christmas!

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Thanks for stopping by and I'd love to hear what you think.