I can often empathize with a blogging friend, Bibliomom. As a single mom of two, she is going through an awful lot of things that I have had to deal with in my life. She once posted a picture of the Christmas tree she bought only to find out that it was a lot bigger than it had looked when she picked it out. She had trouble getting it inside her door.
This reminded me of the last Christmas my kids and I had a real tree for a long, long time. Parts of this have been posted previously but I am adding some other Christmas tree memories.
We had always had real Christmas trees, not an artificial one. That’s how it was when I was a child and when I married, we always got real ones too.
In November of 1992, my husband left home, leaving the three kids and me behind. When it was time to go out to get our tree the following month, the three kids and I went out and bought a real tree. We always had a big 7 foot tree in that house so that’s what I picked out that year. The guys at the Christmas tree lot tied it to the top of the car for us and we drove home. When we got home, it became obvious that we had a problem. First, in their infinite wisdom, the guys had tied the tree to the open windows of my station wagon. We couldn’t get the doors open. My son climbed out the window and went in and got some scissors to let us out of the car. By the time he got out, the girls had also climbed out their windows and I was the only one waiting, patiently, to be let out. He didn’t cut the whole rope/twine. He just pulled on it to get the door open enough for me to get out and cut one bit of the twine. Then we had another problem. The tree was too big and heavy for the kids and I to take it off the top of the car. We couldn’t even reach it. I went inside and called friends and a couple of the neighbors but no one was home or couldn’t help for one reason or another. I called the kids’ dad but he said he wouldn’t come until the next time it was his turn to get the kids, in a few days. I couldn’t leave the tree up there and drive all over town with it that way for three days. Finally one friend called back and said her husband could come but not until the next day so the tree stayed on the car over night and in the morning, I drove the kids to school with the tree on top of the car. I also picked them up after school with it up there. Finally, my friend and her husband came and got it in the house for us. It’s a good thing it was very cold or the poor tree would have died!
That was the last time we had a real Christmas tree for a long time. The following year I debated about having a real tree or an artificial one and remembered all the hassle it had caused to get a real tree so I went to the local drug store and found a fairly decent one that was on sale and took that home. The kids helped me set it up and decorate it but it wasn’t the same. They accepted the artificial tree but missed having a real one. However, it was nice to have a tree that we could set up year after year without having to cut one down each year. When the fake tree got old and too tattered, it was replaced with another fake tree and the tattered one was donated to the school to use in the cafeteria.
In December of 2004, it was just my youngest (she was 14 then) and me left to set up the tree because she wanted to set it up before her brother and sister arrived on December 23rd. We set up the artificial tree and decorated it. She decided we didn’t have enough ornaments on it so we took a drive to Target to get a few more. However, we walked out of Target with a new artificial tree! Susie had fallen in love with a white pre-lit Christmas tree. She also decided she wanted only blue and green decorations on the tree so we had to get a whole tree worth of green and blue ball ornaments and icicle ornaments. I laughed because she decided she wanted that one and moved heaven and earth to get it. She got someone there to agree that the tree should be a markdown item so we got the $150 tree for 60% off! And it was gorgeous. She even paid for the new green and blue ornaments with her money so I wouldn’t say it was too expensive. She didn’t want to use the multicolored decorations we had because they would ruin her new tree. All this she got away with because she looks at me oh-so-sweetly and smiles at me and hugs me and calls me “Mommy”. And if that doesn’t work, she reminds me that she’s my “baby”. Yup. She knows how to work it!
We got home and had to take the green artificial tree down before we could even bring the white tree inside from the car and set it up. It was a lot of work and although the white tree was sixty per cent off, it was still expensive but Susie was happy. I made sure she helped take the green tree down and set up the white tree. As far as decorating it, she took charge of the whole thing which was good because in previous years she had not shown much interest in helping to set it up!
For Christmas of 2006, my older daughter Tina, had moved to Santa Rosa near her sister and me. One weekend, her roommate’s boyfriend took the girls up to the nearby mountains to cut a tree. Tina loved it and insisted that we should go out and cut a tree for my house. We had never done that, although we had spoken of doing it several times. However, we didn’t have anyone to go with us to get the tree and actually cut if for us as the friend that had done it for the girls lived an hour away.
The next day, my son came over with his girlfriend. We were making tamales so she could learn to make them. Tony’s girlfriend drives a small truck and that’s what they had come to visit us on. Tina and Susie weren’t sure if they liked Sarah. They hadn’t spent much time with her. That day they got to know her and liked her. Tina felt comfortable asking her if she’d take us to go get the Christmas tree. She agreed.
So off we went in two cars, Sarah’s truck and my car because there were too many of us to go in the truck. We got to the tree lot up in the mountains just before closing, when it was almost completely dark. The owner let us on the lot to see if we could find a tree in the dark. The girls kept running from one tree to the next, finding fault with every one of them until they came upon a very large tree that they agreed on. Not having done this before, it did not occur to us that the tree would look a lot smaller than it really was when it was out in the open. We didn’t compensate for that. Tony cut the tree down and tied it to Sarah’s truck and we all headed home.
When we got home, the tree was too tall for the living room. Tony ended up having to chop off about eighteen inches. He stood it up in the living room and then we realized that not only was it very tall, it was also very big around. It literally took up half the width of the living room with very little room on either side. By the time the tree was set up and ready to decorate, the girls had lost interest in decorating it and Tony and Sarah had left to her family’s Christmas party. The poor tree stood undecorated in the living room for several days. Finally, on December 23, I threatened to not give the girls any of the gifts I had for them if the tree did not get decorated that night. The tree was as beautiful decorated as it was too big for the room. It was gorgeous and we had learned that next time, if there ever was a next time, we would be sure to measure the tree before cutting it down.
The year Tina and I moved to Oregon, 2008, Tina wanted to go out and cut down a tree. I had my doubts that it would actually happen even though we live in the middle of many “cut your own” tree lots. As luck would have it, the Arctic Blast storm intervened with Tina’s plans and we could not go out and get one. It began to snow on Dec. 14th that year and didn’t stop until the 26th. I could not even leave my driveway! So I pulled out the artificial tree that I had thought to get when Tina and I had gone to Target on Black Friday. It was the exact same tree kind of tree we had in Santa Rosa, a white pre-lit tree. And although that Christmas almost didn’t happen for us, because of flights being canceled, when they finally arrived, we had a tree.
One very moving thing that happened when I posted my Christmas tree story in 2009 is that one of my readers contacted me about a tree. I had posted that we probably would not have a tree that year because we were leaving town on the 20th and would not return home til the 27th. That year, I knew it was a good chance that it would be our last year together at Christmas (with the family going off in different directions) and after the near debacle of the previous Christmas, I had rented a house in California, which had been home for many years. My kids all had ties there and one of them lived there so it made sense to go there for Christmas. However that meant that we would have no tree. My reader lives in the Portland area and offered a small artificial tree that I could have to take with me to California. It was great! We met in the Target parking lot near the airport when she went to pick up her husband. The tree was not only pre-lit but also had music and rotating base. It was great! We enjoyed it and then left it behind for the next family.
This year, I am waiting for my daughter’s help to get my artificial tree out of my shed so I can set it up. It will be the same white pre-lit tree which has become my favorite tree.
Great post thanks. I really enjoyed it very much.
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I love your Christmas tree stories! Sounds like you’ve had a lot of rocky Christmas’s but always made it through 🙂
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We always have to make it through. Even last year, which was the absolute worst Christmas in my 55 years, we made it.
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I wanted to let you know that I still read your posts. I’m so happy to see that the little artificial tree worked out for you. I was thinking of you the other day as I drove by the Target.
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Hi Gretchen! I have often thought of your kindness and generosity! I’m glad you found your way here and said hello! Good to hear from you!
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