As Promised.. Another Christmas Story

Oh Christmas Tree...  Oh Christmas Tree... Oh Christmas Tree?! When Will You Stand In Verdant Beauty

Once upon a time there was a sweet couple who were young and just married one year when Christmas rolled around. They had a two seater convertible and were living on an Indian reservation after moving from their home the year before. They were trying to prepare for a wonderful Christmas knowing that even though it was their first Christmas together they would spend it far from their family who they missed dreadfully. They couldn't buy a Christmas tree since the nearest place to buy a Christmas tree was an hour's drive away over treacherous roads.... and how in the world would they fit a real Christmas tree on the roof of their soft top car.... it just wouldn't work.... So the young couple decided to walk down through the bush surrounding their house and find their Christmas tree.  It didn't take them long to find a small tree about 7 feet high because they didn't want to have to carry a large tree home through the thick brush.... (smart move)! When they got the tree home it was very small and sadly lacking anything like thick branches... but they decorated it all the same and were content in their Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

The next year they scouted out the bush in the fall of the year looking for a nicer Christmas tree and when they found it the marked it and knew that they would go back for it later when Christmas rolled around.When they finally were ready to go and cut their tree.... they walked to the spot where the tree was with their saw and began to cut it. When they cut it down the tree was a little bigger and heavier than they felt they could carry.  It was a lovely tree... the best tree they had ever seen, so they didn't want to cut any of it off to make it lighter. Teapot thought that he could stuff it in the trunk of their two seater convertible and slide it through the ski holder and be able to drive it home if they could just get it to the road. So they lugged and they carried and then Teapot ran home and got the car while the good wife stayed and kept their Christmas tree safe. (You never know when there my be marauding Christmas trees thieves roaming through the -35 degree northern Canadian forest!) When Teapot got there with their car, the good wife was almost frozen... but they stuffed the tree into the back of the car and though there was more length of tree sticking out the back end of the car than there was car, they proceeded to drive home. It only took a few feet of driving for Teapot to notice that there was very little traction on the front wheels. The tree was so heavy and so big that it was lifting the front wheels of the car off the road.... since the car was a front wheel drive this couldn't be good.... so driving very slowly and with the good wife sitting on the hood of the car, Teapot drove home with the large tree sticking out of the back end of the car.... It was as they were driving along at 20 kms an hour that they noticed that the native people who were their neighbours were watching them in surprise and awe.... Who in the world would ever do such a thing.... they were laughing behind their hands and pointing with their chins (native people believe that pointing with their fingers is rude... at least the ones we lived with did!)  Soon, teapot and the good wife got home with the prized tree and discovered right away that the tree was just not going to fit into their home so when they finished trimming off what they needed to in order to get the colossal thing in the house.... it looked like sh--, so Teapot went to the school and got the tree that he had had for his class room and they used that instead.

The next year they had a new vehicle.... it had a hard top so they went to the nearest town and bought a tree from the Christmas tree farm... They picked out a lovely Christmas tree... and the nice gentlemen opened it up so that they could look at it's shape and then he put a tree protector bag made of plastic (it was a big garbage bag basically) over the tree and they loaded it on their vehicle and headed off home. When they got home, they carefully onloaded the tree and brought it into the house and stood it up... Oh no! The plastic bag had flapped in the wind so much on the way home that there was not one pin on one side of the tree. But they stood it up with a sigh and decorated it all the same.

The following year they decided to go back to cutting their own Christmas tree. But instead they decided to cut two.... just in case. They got the two trees home and then decided that one was better than the other but there was a big hole in the branches so Teapot got out his saw and drill and started to manufacture the perfect tree.  They decorated the tree including the branches that Teapot had added from the other tree... and then the tossed what was left of the extra tree out under their bird feeder for the birds in which they could hide away from the cat.  The added branches turned red earlier than all the rest but for the first time they had a pretty nice Christmas tree.

And so it came to pass that the happy little family.... (by now they had two daughters and had become not just a young couple but a happy little family) set in motion in those first four years of celebrating Christmas, a tradition of terrible Christmas tree experiences.... The best one went like this....

Many years later, Christmas tree hunting season was here at last and the happy little family got in their truck and drove to a place where the right size tree grows. They got out of the truck and walked about twenty feet down through the trees and realized that it was going to be difficult getting a tree this year because there was so much snow on the ground. The good wife had a very bad back that year and slogging through the snow was just not going to happen so she went back to sit in the truck while the husband and two daughters walked further and further into the bush. After they disappeared she pulled out the thermos of hot chocolate and took out her knitting needles and began to knit.  Time passed, and the good wife knit more and more. Soon she began to notice that it was starting to get dark and so she looked up in the hopes of seeing Teapot and the Daughters coming back with a tree in tow.  It was blowing and snowing and very cold.... hmmm.... what could be keeping them? Time kept passing and it was getting darker and later and still they didn't come. Finally it was really getting dark and she saw in the distance all three coming with Teapot in the back towing a tree through the snow.  The good wife was so relieved that she decided to get out of the truck and take some pictures of them tracking through the snow. Click went the camera.... and clickety click click it went. Suddenly she felt something odd happening with the bottom of her jeans.... she looked down and there trying to climb up her boot to the bottom of her pants and to the nice warm leg beneath, was a wee mouse that was thinking that a nice pants leg might be a good home for Christmas...! The good wife jumped and as the wee mouse ran frantically trying to get to the nice safe pants leg the good wife began to do the most interesting dance that you can imagine..... Off in the distance, the Daughters and Teapot saw that there was something very wrong with the good wife and so they tried to get there to help the good wife because she was obviously going off her rocker... ! When they ran up to her they saw that she was indeed frantically trying to get something off her leg..... or was it her foot... She was jumping around so crazily that they weren't quite sure what was happening.... In short order, one of the Daughters saw something small and furry fall to the ground and disappear into a mouse hole and it was then they they figured out what was wrong with the good wife..... She dove into the truck and swore she was getting an artificial tree and never going looking for a real tree again. Everybody laughed at her and when she calmed down a few days later she began to see the humour in the situation and began to laugh about it too.... but still she swore that she would never have another real tree as long as she lived.

It took the good wife three long years but finally.... finally she convinced Teapot and her Daughters that an artificial tree that could be taken out of a box  and set up in 7 minutes was the best tree option of all...

And so it came to pass.....

Merry Christmas... and may your Tannenbaum be as simple as ours is....