The Tree that Stole Christmas

Christmastime is the highlight of many a kid’s year, and I was no exception.  It wasn’t the school vacation, the family gatherings, or even Santa himself that made me merry, though; it was our family’s collection of Christmas traditions.

First, there was the “seasonal Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” tradition, which involved my mother channeling Joan Crawford while scrubbing every inch of our rambling old house until it shone. Then, there was the “florist flurry” when we’d go all over town (read: to the two florists’ shops) in search of centerpieces, wreathes, greenery, garlands, and assorted velvet bows to festoon every mantle and door. Of course, there were traditions of holiday baking, gift buying and wrapping, throwing the annual Christmas party, going to church services and pageants. But the one I loved the most- my very favorite tradition - was buying the Christmas tree.

Every year, Daddy and I were tasked with buying the family tannenbaum, an adventure that I was excited about before Halloween. It was a mission we took very seriously, knowing that it would be the focal point of all the holiday entertaining. We charted our course through local tree lots, even doing daylight surveys of the selection to assess height, shape, and overall fullness.  We had but three tree requirements: it had to be live, it had to be a Frasier fir, and it had to be no less than twelve feet tall.

In the year of our lord 1992, we were off to a late start, and be it our own bad timing or an off growing season, the tree selection in our wee hamlet was literally coming up short. Determined, we struck out for the nearest city in my father’s late model Chevrolet sedan.  Christmas was looming and my parents' annual Christmas party was only a few days away, so time was of the essence.  

After stopping at our fifth or sixth lot, morale was low.  The biggest tree we had found was a measly eight feet, forty-eight whole inches shy of the living room ceiling. The smell of defeat, like that of a pine-scented air freshener, hung heavy in the December air.  As the clock neared ten, we turned toward home with no tree and no prospects, now twenty miles away. 

We spotted it at the same time.  I gasped, clutching my hands to my chest, only vaguely aware of the Chevy’s screeching brakes.  There, next to the Central Park Burger drive-thru, was a tall, tall tree. Daddy skidded into the gravel parking lot just as the attendant, clad in workboots, a red plaid jacket, and a cap, was ready to leave.  Luckily, he was also clad with holiday (or perhaps entrepreneurial) spirit and wearily agreed to let us take a quick look.

Though the tree that beckoned to us from the highway stood far above the rest, Daddy gave every tree on the lot a once over; this was not a decision to be made hastily, after all.  I, on the other hand, had my mind made up.  I stood at the base of the largest tree, craning my neck to see the very top. 

Glory be, she was a beauty – a Frasier fir the likes of which I had never seen.  She was tall and round, and had no bare spots.  From where I stood, the North Star appeared perched on top, a burst of white in the dark winter sky.  It was if God himself had cut her down just for me, my very own Christmas miracle.  Dad, equally as awed, settled down to matters of logistics. 

“Now, about this tree…,” he said to the tree seller.

 “Yessir, a fine tree.  Straight out of the North Carolina mountains,” the man replied.

 “Is that so?  Well, what do you want for it?”

 “It was $135, sir.”

 Such a price was unprecedented for a Christmas tree in the early 1990s, and my father, though admittedly a terrible negotiator, would not take such a price lying down.

 “$135!?”

 “Yessir.  We cut this tree down special for the community college.  They couldn’t use it because it’s too big.”

That should’ve been a warning, but the angel voices we heard every time we gazed upon her drowned out the alarm bells.

 “Anything you can do about that?”

 “I tell you what.  Since it’s close to Christmas, and the tree is too big for anybody to buy, I’ll let you have it for $75.”

Again, sirens sounded, but by this time, we were high on the bargain.

After further consideration, the tree salesman agreed to deliver the tree to our house the next day for an additional charge, as there was no way in Hell we could all survive a trip down the interstate with it strapped on the top of our Chevy Celebrity.  We drove home feeling both merry and bright.

The tree was delivered around noon the next day, and we all three rushed outside to the carport to see it.  Momma was the last one outside, and before the screen door even slammed behind her, we knew we were In Trouble.

“Oh. My. God. WHAT have you DONE?”

 There lying on its side was a fir tree twice the length of the car, head high,  and equally as wide.  I stared, wide-eyed, as my dad circled it slowly.

 “It’ll be fine.  We’ll just have to trim some off the bottom… you’ll see.  I’ll call Daddy.”

 My grandfather arrived a short time later with a hacksaw, intending to help trim the lower limbs and trunk, and carry her into the living room.

 “Well, this is going to take some work,” he said.

 To work they went, slowly sawing through the bottom branches to reveal the trunk. 

 “We’re going to need a bigger saw.”

The trunk of the tree was roughly a foot and a half in diameter, and with nothing but a small hand saw, we were ill-equipped.  My grandfather left, to return shortly with a gasoline-powered chainsaw.

 “Stand back.”

I sat perched on the doorstep watching as the two men cut first two, then three feet off the bottom of my Christmas miracle.

 “Not too much, Dad,” my father warned.

 Together, they set about attaching the tree stand, a small aluminum affair painted red and green with long bolts on each side to hold the tree upright.

 “This trunk is just too wide.”

Again, the chainsaw roared to life, as they whittled the tree trunk to a finer point.   With the apparatus now securely attached, my father wiped his brow.

“Let’s stand ‘er up.”

With a mighty heave, our tree was set upright.  It remained so for approximately fifteen seconds.

“TIMBER!” my grandfather cried, high-stepping out of the path of destruction.  The shrapnel formerly known as a tree stand clanged noisily against the driveway.

“Well, SHIT.”

Grandaddy, being an inventive man, was quick to find a MacGyver-worthy solution:  we would nail two-by-fours to the tree trunk.  An hour later, following the gathering of lumber, nails, a hammer, and several alcoholic beverages, a system of cross braces had been constructed.

 “Let’s stand ‘er up again.”

The two men pushed the tree into a vertical position and then ducked and covered.  After a good minute of precariously wobbling, it stood erect, though with a noticeable leftish somewhat gangsta lean.  My mother stood in the doorway, shaking her head slowly.

“How are you going to get that thing in the house?”

 “Shut up.  It will fit.  Hold the door open.”

 With a mighty heave, my father and grandfather hauled the tree toward the door.  Delighted with the progress, I ran ahead down the hall to the living room, their final destination.   It was then that I heard the first crash.

 “JOHNNY!” my mother cried, “You’re going to scrape the walls!”

 “SHUT. UP.  Everything is FINE!” my father replied.

 They progressed down the long hall, leaving yet another path of destruction in their wake.  The tree filled the hallway, scrubbing both walls and collecting assorted wall art and small furniture as it traveled.  Even the cat clamored for higher ground.

 “WATCH THE LAMP!”

With another crash, we stood in total darkness, the hall lamp added to the list of domestic casualties.

“It’s fine.  We’re at the living room door now, we just have to make the turn.”

He was right about the proximity, but wrong about the probability of execution.  The girth of the tree, coupled with its newly fashioned base, could not swing around to fit through the living room door.

 “Shit.  Shut up.  Let’s go back out.”

 And so the tree was reversed back down the narrow hallway, leaving  a matching set of sap stripes on both sides in its wake.  A new plan was hatched, this one requiring an approach through the front door and directly into the living room.  The tree was hauled through the front yard, and finally, successfully, through the front door.

 “I need a break,” said my father, collapsing on the sofa.

 “I need a broom,” my mother replied.

 “Let’s stand her up!” My grandfather was confident in his engineering skills.

The four of us together pushed the beast upright, and stepped back to admire our handiwork.

 “Well, at least it’s standing.”

 And it was standing.  It was standing with the top four feet wedged at a ninety degree angle against the ceiling and filling half of the living room floor.

 “I’ll get the saw.”

As not to destroy the major construction already completed on the trunk, my father sawed off the top four feet.  The result was that of a giant Christmas shrub, twelve feet tall and perfectly round. 

 “I don’t think the angel is going to fit.”

Tree-topper or not, our tree was in the house and standing (mostly) upright.  Yes, she was round, and yes, she leaned left, but there was no denying our sense of accomplishment.  Even Mom, the nay-sayer of the bunch, was humming “Oh, Tannenbaum!”

Less than five minutes later, the tree was lying across the couch.

 “I know what to do.”

In a feat of structural engineering all his own, my father screwed eye-hooks into each of the four corners of the living room, fastening long strands of fifty lb. test monofilament fishing line to each of them and tying them tightly to the tree. Before the second knot was tied, my mother’s tune had changed from that of Christmas carol to that of the funeral march.

“Now that’s going to hold,” he proclaimed.  I nodded eagerly in agreement.  My mother and the cat looked skeptical.  Grandaddy turned wordlessly and left for home.

With the tree theoretically more stable, the three of us began the task of decorating.  Dad, standing 6’5” was the only one capable of stringing lights and hanging ornaments.  Mom fished out each one and fastened the hooks, and I handed them up the ladder.  All three of us tip-toed.

 “It looks good! All we need now is some icicles!” Dad proclaimed, as he did every Christmas, much to my mother’s dismay.  For the uninitiated, icicles are slivers of shiny foil paper, sometimes called tinsel, that hang in strands on the tree branches.  My mother thinks they are the work of the devil; my father and the cat disagree.

“TOMORROW! We’ll talk about icicles TOMORROW. “  It was midnight then, and she hoped by morning he’d forget.

With a final farewell look, we unplugged the lights, and headed for bed, softly shutting the living room door behind us. It was a matter of minutes before disaster struck again. 

It sounded like an anvil taking a swan dive into a dumpster full of liquor bottles, and the reality was nearly as bad.  We flung open the door, and the cat shot out as if her tail were mightily ablaze.  There in the middle of the living room floor was my tree.  All four hooks were ripped clean out of the plaster walls, the rounded top playing a symphony on the piano over all eight octaves.  Shattered bits of ornament and tree needles covered every visible surface. Tree –  eleventy seven;  family – zero.   

We stood in the doorway, mouths agape.  “We’ll deal with this tomorrow,” said Mom, closing the door behind her. 

 And we did.  The very next day, we reinstalled the hooks, re-constructed the tree (complete with icicles) and the living room, and banished the cat to the laundry room.  The party was held, and the guests marveled at the spectacle of the tree, which was now sparsely decorated and somewhat smashed.  Everyone who visited wanted a photo showcasing the sheer size of it with a person as a point of reference, no minor ask considering this pre-dated digital photography.  The story was told and retold for many a laugh.

Christmas came and went, and the tree did not.  It remained in the living room, suspended by fishing line, until well into March, when my mother put her foot down.

“It is Saint Patrick’s Day! This tree will not be here come Easter,” she said, “I MEAN IT!”

Finally, the manpower was gathered and the tree, now needle-less, was hauled out to the front of the house.  It remained there among the blooming azaleas for many days as Christmas tree pickup had long since ended, causing embarrassment and onlooker traffic delays.  The hooks remain in the living room walls to this day.

As the holidays approached again, the issue of The Tree resurfaced.  Dad tried to reason, but Mom held firm: there were to be no more live trees in our household.   It was the end of an era.

That same year, we opted out of the big holiday party for the first time, probably out of lack of holiday spirit; the previous Christmas lasted four months, after all.  We put up a skinny five-foot artificial tree, which I referred to as “the Christmas twig” because by comparison, it was.

That tree was our Sistine Chapel, our magnum opus, our crowning acheivement- we literally could not top it.

True to her word, Momma never allowed another live tree in her house. Truth is, our Christmas Redwood was as good as it got.  That tree was our Sistine Chapel, our magnum opus, our crowning acheivement- we literally could not top it.  The Tree had stolen every future Christmas.  The season has never been the same.