I can’t guarantee that this is the only awkward thing that will happen in my life this holiday season. But I can tell you that the event I’m about to describe goes down in history as one of the most janky, rigged-up, random things Derek and I have ever done.
And we’ve done a lot of weird things in our day. I’ll start by showing you a photo of the tree while we were decking it out. Now let me tell you how we got here…
So it’s Christmas time and we needed a tree. One of our favorite holiday traditions is finding our Christmas tree…and cutting it down ourselves if at all possible. The only time we’ve bought off a lot was when we lived in Oklahoma, and that’s only because they are so hard up for trees down there.
Over the years we have found some pretty precarious trees. Like the tree we got in Florida after driving by a random evergreen field. There was a mailbox with a saw hanging from a nail on the post and a sign that read : “Christmas Trees $25. Use the saw. Put money in the mailbox.”
Seriously I can’t make this stuff up. We hauled that one home in the back of our 1995 convertible LeBaron.
But what happened this weekend was even more redneck than that.
Saturday started innocently, with our weekly trip to Menard’s. {We always need something from Menard’s.} After picking up screws and bolts we went to the garden section to get a tree. But when we walked outside it just didn’t feel right. Sure, the nearest Christmas tree farm is hours away. But there had to be a Christmas tree for us somewhere in the wild. So we left tree-less and took a drive into the sticks to see if we could find a tree that we could whack down ourselves.
It turns out…there aren’t many more trees here than there were in Oklahoma.
We drove and drove. And what we found was that evergreens are planted intentionally up here. They lined lawns and created property boarders, but none seemed appropriate to cut down and haul off without facing criminal fines. We were about to give up and drive home when suddenly…there it was…
It was a true Clark Griswald moment. You know like at the beginning of the movie when he sees the tree, and it doesn’t matter that it’s way too big, or that it’s not even the kind of tree you use for a Christmas decoration. “Thith tree is a thymbol of the thspirit of the Griswold family Chrithmath.” And we knew it would be ours.
Where was this magical tree? I think this photo can speak for itself.
Yep. You are seeing correctly. It was at the edge of a gas station. All alone. Obviously an intrusive tree, not meant to be there. What gave us further calm about taking it for our own was the fact that it was half uprooted by the wind. If we left it, it would just die anyway…this was much more dignified. Sure, it was leaning back on another tree…but we’d be able to straighten it up in the stand. Sure it literally had empty bird nests in it…but we’d shake it good before taking it inside. Sure it was full…but we have tree trimmers at the house.
So Derek cut. And once it was cut we had another Griswald moment. Pretty much the same realization Russ has when he says: “Dad, that thing wouldn’t fit in our yard.” But we knew, “It’s not going in our yard, Russ, it’s going in our living room.” It was big.
But stuffed it in the back of the Equinox anyway. Somehow we got the doors closed and we hauled it home where we whacked off a few feet at the bottom, and I trimmed it into a respectable shape. Once up in the living room we really realized how ugly natural it looked. Full of holes, still a bit crooked. It looks as awkward as the circumstances it came from. But we put it up, slathered it in lights and used the trimmings to deck the rest of our halls.
In 2012 we cut down our own tree. And it was a beaut, Clark.
Amy
