The Annual Tree Farm visit! How I remember those days. We would drive for two hours to East TExas, where Dan would choose his saw with great care, like a gladiator choosing his sword, and we'd board a hay wagon to the tree fields. There was a bell on the wagon the kids could ring.
And ring
And ring.
I learned to take tylenol before we left.
ANd I'm allergic to hay. So I had to take antihistamine too.
Have you noticed how small the trees look in the field? One Christmas we got one that was the mother of all trees. I look at the videos of it now and am amazed. It was tall, yes- maybe 12-14 feet, but mostly it was FAT. As wide as it was tall. You had to crawl under it to get to the piano. You could play hide 'n' seek under it.
We have video of every Christmas. We watch them every year along with THe Christmas Story, which is a tradition.
The boys favorite one is a video of me sliding gracefully down a muddy bank into a creek on a Tree Farm treasure Hunt.
It's not my favorite.
Anyway, the Tree Day took about eight hours.
Yesterday I said, let's get the tree- the weather is good. We went to the Garden Shop 1/4 mile away where Dan picked up a tree and said, "this is good." In his defense, I suppose, like you, he got used to being disregarded as a competent tree judge. I said, well, it has a big bald spot.
He said, oh you won't see it when the ornaments are on.
So we got it and got in the tree pickup line behind the trucks and vans. The tree loaders looked at us in disbelief. Stupid yuppies trying to get a 12 foot tree in a Sebring convertible. It wouldn't go in the trunk so we put the top down and propped the tree up in the back seat where it rode in style, nodding regally to the neighbors as we passed.
The bald spot of course grew larger and seems now to have spread around the lower circumference of the tree. POor topheavy thing--No wonder it fell.
The whole trip took 20 minutes. |
