Trees

Originally Written Between  2013-2015

The house is completely decorated for Christmas.  The snow is starting to fall and the lights on the trees outside have just gone on for the evening.  Il Divo is singing O Holy Night and I am sitting next to the Christmas tree with all its twinkling lights glowing in the dark.  Il Divo is now on to the next selection on the CD, which is I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas and I’m all tucked in for a long winter’s night of reminiscing about my past Christmas holidays.

I have to admit that a Christmas tree is the first thing I thought of when I heard the topic for today.  Well…. not only the first thing – but, the only thing.  I suppose I could talk about how we could save the trees if we recycled or trees are good for the birds and shade and other excellent reasons.  But, for the amount of knowledge I have about that, I would be done in less-than-a-minute.  And, I believe that we are allotted at least five minutes to share our brilliant writing.  So, since I have many years of experience with Christmas trees, my topic for today is Christmas trees.

I have one particular memory that stands out – mainly since this became a “tradition” in our household for many, many years.  It centers around my grandpa.  Grandpa liked to go out into the woods up north near Duluth and hunt deer.  While I have absolutely no memory of him ever coming home with any kind of an animal, I do remember he always came home with two Christmas trees – one for my family and the other for his and Grandma’s home.  He never paid for these trees.  He “hunted” on property owned by his sister and her family and had the pick of their trees in 40 acres of woods.

The “pickings” were not wonderful, however.  Grandpa never – and I mean never – came home with a tree that one could just place in the tree stand and sing Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree while decorating it with ornaments and tinsel.  I can still picture my poor dad, sawing the trunk (sometimes a double trunk) into a manageable size to fit into the tree stand and then carving holes into the trunk in order to re-position the branches. 

Grandpa’s perception of the height of our living room ceiling was different every year, also.  Some years, dad would have to saw a foot or so off the bottom and some years, he had to place the tree on a box to make it tall enough to fill the room.  It was always an adventure – at least for us kids – and I do remember always learning a few new words from my dad during this time of assembling the tree.

The end result was always beautiful, of course, and dad had to admit every year that it was worth all of the trouble when he’d finally turn on the lights and we’d all admire his fine handy work – our angel sitting on the top branch, our homemade ornaments carefully placed for all to see, and the tinsel sparkling in the light’s afterglow.