We love a real tree. In our life before kids (hard as that is to remember), we had an open house every year just before Christmas and part of the tradition for at least 8 years was for the tree to fall over near the end of the open house (most people took that as their signal to leave whether they had been ready to leave 5 minutes earlier or not). The only year that the falling tree wasn’t the highlight of the open house was the year our advent wreath caught fire!
When Heather was born, we dragged her along in her sleigh. We did the same with Christopher for his first Christmas. Then, in 2001, we had an extension built onto the house. We decided that rather than risk 5 gallons of water all over the new carpet when the tree went for a toss, we would invest in an artificial tree. So for seven years, we built our tree. Doug took no chances and tied the tree up anyway. Not such a bad idea once we added cats into our household. Two years ago, we decided to once again venture out and get a real tree. Christopher had missed out on that part of our annual Christmas preparations. So off we went.
It was an all day event. We finally had the tree up and ready to decorate about 3:00. We left the kids to it. It looked terrific. A few burned out lights, but otherwise a great tree. After supper, Doug was commenting on how great the tree was. I said "yes, but it seems to be at a 45 degree tilt" The kids overheard and started fussing about getting it fixed. I told them dad would get to it in a minute, "after all it is not about to fall down in the next five minutes, I promise you" No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I heard Doug yell, "it's over..........get towels........" Seems that our luck with real trees is back (and yes, it was tied up.......took the nails right out of the wall when it went for a toss). We did manage to break a record though. Shortest time ever before the tree tipped. Usually it lasted a week.
Last year, we managed to cut down a tree that had two trunks! (What the heck?)
While we didn’t have the falling over problem, we were hit with a different plague. It dried out and every day, more and more needles would rain onto the floor. By Christmas morning, we were down to a few barren twigs…….making it the shortest time our tree has been up past the opening of the presents. About an hour to be exact!
Wonder what memories (or near nightmares) this year’s tree will hold!?!
Merry Christmas!
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