10:16 a.m. - 2007-01-07
The afterlife of Christmas trees.

On Old Christmas Trees

We always get a live tree. I would like to graduate to an artificial for several reasons. No mess, you can get them prelit, you have it already and don't have to waste 40.00 on something you throw away and the biggest reason is space. I would love to get a "tall as the ceiling" pencil tree where I would have the height but not the bulk of a live tree.

Mike insists on a live tree and he won't bend. Ever since we experienced cutting down our own, we now have to go do that also. I don't know if it is the cutting of the tree that he enjoys so much, or even the fact that it is ultra fresh as he points out is the reason. I think he likes to go in the little warming house where Santa and/or Mrs. Santa is strolling around, they are selling cheap Christmas crafts to look at and you can either buy or sometimes get a free cider and cookie.

The downside of this is that a tree standing in a field always looks much smaller than it is and when you get it home, you must rearrange the furniture around it and squeeze aroud it to move in and out of the room.

Around Halloween time,I wrote this entry about how Mike likes pumpkin farms. So even childless as we are...we have to go to one of those commercial pumpkin farms to get our pumpkin...and again, he gets a hot cider and a cookie. Fatherhood was a joy to Mike only as long as our daughter remained young enough to do these activities. Once the teen years approached, he really had a hard time dealing with it.

He will be an awesom Grandpa.

I remember as a young child, everyone got live trees. You would see them on the first garbage day after Christmas laying sadly on their side at the curb waiting for the garbage man. One year....I must have been aroud 10 or younger, I went around the whole block and dragged every Christmas tree laying at the curb home and into the backyard. I arranged them in a circle from tip to end and then piled a second layer on top like you would stack bricks. The branches interlocked and it made an incredible fort. Higher than any snow fort could be built, and dense enough to keep Johnny Campbell's snowballs out.

I played in my fort until my Mother found out. Boy was she mad. I just didn't understand why she would be upset at having the entire blocks Christmas trees in our yard. She made me disassemble my fort and drag them all back where I found them. Today, I am a grownup and now I understand. But still.....you can't deny....they made one heck of a fort.

This year, because of Mike's medical issues, we got this tiny little live Charlie Brown tree from Lowes for 16.00. It was only 2-1/2 feet high and had a stand with a water bowl nailed onto the bottom. There was no Santa, no Mrs. Santa, no hot cider or cookie but hey, the tree was live.

I took it down and put it at the curb on New Years day, but the garbage men didn't get a chance to pick it up. School let out before they reached our block and Mike looked out the window to see a Jr. High aged boy pick it up and chase two girls down the street with it, waving it like it was some kind of giant tickler. We never saw our little tree again.

I wonder who's house it is laying in front of now.?

P. I. Yarnsmith

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