O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree! What Happened to Your Branches?

One of the minor benefits of having your own property in the country (the major benefit being the wherewithal to dump a very badly -- however enthusiastically -- “restored” 80-year-old baby grand piano in the corner behind the barn and not even bury it) is that you can chop down your own Christmas tree.   Granted, this is most desirable if your property is in, say, Maine, or Vermont, perhaps even the Pacific Northwest, if you don’t mind a minimum tree height of 30 feet.  In Kansas, where the native trees are largely of the “weather-beaten-survivor” variety, and where evergreens are vastly outnumbered by the stunted but brutally thorny Hedgerow tree, you sometimes have to get creative, which is just a nice way to say you must drastically lower your standards for how your tree is going to look once you set it up in the living room. 

Since “Lower Your Standards” became our family motto (I am thinking of having it emblazoned on our mailbox and printed on stationery), the only question we really had to ask ourselves last month, when the tree search began, was, “Why didn’t we do this years ago?”

I think I found it! - Woody

 The tree that is leaning – er, standing – in the living room now came from the clump of Eastern Red Cedars huddled belligerently about 200 feet from our front door, daring us to try to push through and perform annual maintenance on the lagoon.  Because we haven’t bothered with any kind of maintenance in the seven years we’ve lived here (refer back to the family motto), the trees clearly needed to serve a new purpose.  Anyway, I believe this tree was selected because it was on the periphery of the clump, and once Jim and the children reached it, and the children took off into the undergrowth to play hide and seek, all the while running with pruning shears and whooping and screaming in delight, Jim didn’t have to brave some of the taller and thornier trees to get to it.  So, chop, chop, drag it through the front door, pop it into the Christmas tree stand, and we’re done!  Almost.

"Helping" Dad.

Taking it home.

Now, Eastern Red Cedars can be green or brown, depending on whether or not they were already dead when you chopped them down, and also on how frequently the dogs drink out of the Christmas tree stand.  They (the trees, not the dogs) smell LOVELY, and are only slightly thornier (which caused the depletion of almost half a tube of Neosporin and 30 Band Aids once we began hanging ornaments), than Hedgerows, while possessing the unique quality of being able to bend almost in half once an ornament made of clay, wood, tin, cotton, paper, or apparently cobwebs, is dangled from any branch.  I am somewhat suspicious that this particular tree is related to the India Rubber Tree.  While it is flexible, it also is sparse and asymmetrical, featuring random bald spots big enough to drive a truck through.  It is in these low-lying breaks that the children hung most of their Hallmark Keepsake ornaments, along with whole boxes of candy canes (much to the dogs’ delight), tinsel, various bows that had fallen off presents, and construction paper scraps (thanks to Betsy) that were supposed to go into the trash can. 

The Keepsake ornaments – an Ironman, Spiderman, the Death Star, Imperial Cruise Ship, two miniature arcade games, an airplane, two motorcycles, various Snoopy and Woodstocks, and Disney characters -- are treasures in and of themselves, and at one time most likely contained musical apparatuses and moving parts, and possibly heads, hands, or ears, that may or may not be missing now.  They have been played with, loved, dropped and broken so often that their main component currently is superglue … and also tiny patches of skin from my fingers.

This year we tried something different: adding the lights after the ornaments, because I’d forgotten, until the children had dived into the ornament boxes, that instead of removing last year’s lights and putting them away for future use, Jim had simply opened up the back door and tossed the tree, lights included, onto the patio, where it languished, gradually blending in with the rest of the dead foliage, until Spring, when it was carted off to the pond, non biodegradable bits and all.  Now, I don’t know any person who is man enough to tell a handful of starry-eyed kids, arms loaded with ornaments, that they’ll have to wait to hang them up until Mom runs to Target to get more lights -- certainly not I.   So our tree was fully dressed, well, the bottom half anyway, in five minutes flat. I got to decorate the top half days later with the lights tossed hastily up and over (since I didn’t want bloody fingers) and little else … not even a lighted star, which might cause it to implode. 

I know it's out of focus.  Trust me, it's better this way.

 But I don’t want for you to think our poor tree doesn’t fit right in with the other Christmas decorations: the little white porcelain Nativity scene Mom found at the Goodwill in Seattle years ago, that is so charming, except it is missing Baby Jesus (irreverent Sally suggested substituting a white-painted peanut); the miniature felt Christmas trees Amanda painstakingly hand stitched, now missing entire rows of beads and spangles but cloaked in glitter from all the kids’ handmade paper-paste-glitter decorations; the creepy bear rug Jim found in an antique store that normally is draped menacingly over the bookshelf, and now sports a red Santa hat, cocked jauntily at an angle; the Dickens Christmas Village houses and stores, most of which have missing chimneys and chipped roofs.   A store front-worthy tree would never do here. 

I went through a stage, briefly, where I tried to decorate our tree with a theme, all white lights, coordinating colors, twisted ribbon, sophisticated style.  But it didn’t take.  Jim, who grew up with breathtakingly beautiful trees because his mother was an interior decorator and has exquisite taste, kindly (or perhaps wisely) said nothing.  Before I had to publically admit I had neither style nor taste, Jack and Woody on two separate occasions, in selfless acts to preserve my dignity (or maybe just because they were two years old) tried to take big bites out of the delicate glass balls, which shattered in their mouths.  With great relief (and after all the shrieking and first aid had been administered) I donated the glass decorations to the Salvation Army, and returned to my roots: mismatched ornaments, light on aesthetics, heavy on the tinsel. 

With the curtains drawn and the Christmas lights lit, and if I tilt my head and squint, just so, I am 10 years old again.  I can almost smell the burning of the pine needles on red-hot glass bulbs.  I hear the Hi-Fi playing the static-y words:

"O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree! How lovely are your branches ..."

Lucy, Woody, Jack, Bets.